


Exit

by 7PercentSolution



Series: Nothing Made Me [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Grieving, Heartbreak, John POV, Mycroft POV, PTSD, Romance, TBI and recovery, TRF plot holes filled, The Sigurson Plan, Unrequited Love, Viclock, Whump, angst like whoa, sherlock POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2020-12-09 04:41:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20989019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7PercentSolution/pseuds/7PercentSolution
Summary: ExitVerb1.	Go out from or leave a place or particular situation.2.	Terminate a process or program.3.	Die.The end (or not, as the case may be), covering The Fall and its aftermath. Can be considered both a conclusion to my Fallen Angel series and a coda to Extricate and The Ex. A five plus one.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you are like me, you may have wondered just what it was that made Moriarty change his tune on the roof of Barts. One minute he says Sherlock is boring, normal and on the side of the angels, the next he says "You are me." What made him change his mind? Puzzling over that gap led me to the whole premise behind the Fallen Angel series, of which this forms the final part.

Dropping the phone and spreading his arms, Sherlock prepares by taking a deep breath. Stepping off the ledge is the only logical decision, so he takes it.

Within seconds, the fall strips him of everything rational. When the nylon blue airbag completely fills his field of vision, the illogical takes over: a primitive, instinctive reflex kicks in and obliterates all his careful planning. In the final seconds, Sherlock cannot stop himself from turning away, curling his head into his chest, bringing an arm up to protect his head, changing his angle of descent.

When it comes, the landing is far from ideal. Instead of absorbing the shock as planned — which would have been taking the hit through his legs by going feet-first and then into a safety roll on the airbag — Sherlock's reflexive action brings him down on the back of his right side, with his hip and shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. It punches every molecule of oxygen out of his lungs, and before he can draw in a breath to replace them, his chest is gripped by searing pain. As the airbag immediately starts collapsing around him, his last conscious thought is the memory of Moriarty's taunt, '_It's not the fall that kills you, Sherlock… it's the landing_.' He is unconscious by the time hands wrest him free of the blue nylon of the collapsed airbag.

He is lifted onto the waiting ambulance trolley. It is the same one that had carried the prepared dead body now being arranged onto the pavement as a gory tableau. Complete with make-up expertly applied with the skill learned from a theatre professional who owed him a favour. The contact lenses are a perfect match to that unique eye colour that is as distinctive as the Belstaff coat now worn by a dead body, with the latex mask made last night in place. It had been Molly Hooper's suggestion, and it is now her masterpiece. She had argued that the body should wear the old coat; the new one could be worn by Sherlock because Moriarty would be less likely than John to realise it was a different article.

The homeless network swarms into action, tossing the collapsed airbag onto the flatbed truck as it drives away. Just as John manages to get to his feet after being hit by the cyclist, the trolley bearing the live version of the dead body on the pavement is wheeled to the back of the ambulance parked to the left of the station.

While the pre-planned tragedy takes place on the blood-stained pavement, the ambulance drives away south on Giltspur Street, waiting until it reaches the junction with Holborn before turning on its lights and sirens. To any onlooker who cares to notice, it is just another call-out from the Barts ambulance station.

The MI6 paramedic on board is taking vital signs and does not like what he is seeing. He slides open the plexiglass window between the back and the driver. His command of "Re-direct UCLH A&E." is met with a nod. The paramedic then calls a number that rings on the seventh floor of a building at Vauxhall Bridge.

"Status?" asks Elizabeth ffoukes in a clipped tone.

"Injured but alive. We'll find out how badly in A&E."

"Keep me informed."

oOoOoOoOo

There is something pressing on his chest. It's annoying. Next, the pressure moves to his fingers, a pinching squeeze on the cuticle of his right index and pointer fingers that makes him vaguely nauseous. Some odd sound in his ear; he can't make sense of it, even though he recognises it vaguely as human speech.

"Wake up, Mister Sigurson. _Lars_. OPEN YOUR EYES." 

The noise slowly penetrates the fog to become words, and a name — _that_ name — invokes a recent memory. He’s on the rooftop, talking to Moriarty.

_“I am you — prepared to do anything; prepared to burn; prepared to do what ordinary people won’t do. You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you.”_

_“Naah. You talk big. Naah. You’re ordinary. You’re ordinary — you’re on the side of the angels.”_

_“Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one second that I am one of them.” _Aware that the phone in his pocket is recording their exchange but determined to keep Mycroft from knowing what he needs to communicate now, Sherlock locks eyes with Moriarty and silently mouths the words,_ “I’m Lars Sigurson.”  
  
_Jim is clearly shocked by the revelation, blinking and closing his eyes as he realises the extent to which he has been played over the last six months. When he speaks again, it is softly, a voice full of realisation_. “I see... You’re not ordinary. No. You’re me.”_

He shakes hands with Sherlock, as if greeting him as a colleague, a compatriot in crime. Giving a delighted laugh, he declares,_ “You’re me! Thank you!” _

Sherlock remembers his own realisation; he had agreed with that statement, accepting that he had to become someone new, someone able to pass muster as the unseen and anonymous Viking, the Norwegian who had become an important part of the consulting criminal’s network for the past six months. It had brought him to the roof-top show-down and to Moriarty’s decision to kill himself.

He knows he has to open his eyes now, get on with the plan of keeping John alive but it isn’t happening; there is nothing connecting what is going on in his head with the rest of his Transport.

A disembodied voice reports, “Blood pressure stabilising; pulse increasingly tachycardic."

When the pinching fingers move from his fingers to his orbital sockets, reflexes kick in and he squirms away, eyes opening a crack. Light lances in like an arrow, right through his eyeballs and up a nerve to explode its pain deep in his head. A strangled shout rips from his throat and reflex drives him to move his right hand to bat away the thing that is pushing on the bone above his eye.

_Mistake._ Pain rips up his right side and he cries out.

A calm voice, a different one from the earlier one, commands, "Oh point seventy-five alfentanil IV, please. Can't afford him getting too agitated so chase that down with three milligrams midazolam."

He wants to laugh; for him, with his tolerance, those doses are a joke. He has, however, overestimated the energy reserves of his battered body: soon the gap between his mind and the rest of him widens, then snaps completely.

  
oOoOoOoOo

  
The unconscious patient is admitted as Lars Sigurson, ID provided by the ambulance crew. When a suited young woman arrives, claiming to be Cecilia Sigurson, the next-of-kin of the injured man, the medical team accept it as given and explain the patient's condition: "Two cracked ribs on the right, a hair-line fracture of the pelvis, also on the right, dislocated right shoulder with associated tendon and soft tissue damage. He's sedated, in Radiology right now getting a CT scan, because we are concerned about head trauma. The EMTs said he'd fallen from a second storey scaffold."

Over the next six hours, the blonde-haired agent provides a running commentary to Elizabeth ffoukes, charting Lars' movement from the trauma CT package scan and then from A&E into the ITU. "He woke up briefly, threw up. Scans say no fracture of the skull, and they're saying there is no sign yet that he has oedema — that's swelling of the brain, ma'm — and no sign of major haematomas. That's bleeding in or on the brain. Apparently, any combination of those things happen a lot in this sort of fall. As yet, no one is talking surgery, but…"

The young woman is not sure how to explain the tense faces and sense of urgency in the medical professionals that occasionally appear to tell her something. She decides to sum it up, "The nurse said it looks like Grade 3 concussion, although the doctors used the initials mTBI, that's short for mild traumatic brain injury."

“Advise when and if there are any changes, no matter what time of day or night.”

  
oOoOoOoOo

  
As she faces the door to her flat, Molly’s hands are still shaking, the key rattling in the lock. It’s been a long day, and quite possibly the worst in her life. Last night’s preparations had been a whirlwind of activity that had given her very little time to think through the finality of what was about to happen. She’s been running on adrenaline bolstered by copious amounts of caffeine.

Now that the plans had unfolded exactly as Sherlock had promised, Molly has had time to consider just how mad, how _awful_ it has been.*

As soon as she’s inside, the door safely shut behind her, Molly kicks off her flats.

She heads straight for the kitchen and the pinot grigio that is in the fridge. Only half the bottle is left and she wonders if it will be enough. A vague memory stirs in her exhausted brain that there is some brandy in a cupboard somewhere, a left-over from Christmas. Molly thinks that the day she’s just had warrants getting very drunk indeed.

Annoyingly, her hand is still shaking as she pours the glass. Even after hastily taking two large gulps down, it’s only then that she realises she’s missing something.

_Where’s Toby?_

The cat should be stropping her ankles and complaining in a loud voice about not being fed.

She heads for the living room, carrying her glass, which she almost drops in shock at the sight of someone sitting in her chair.

The immaculately-suited man has Toby in his lap and is stroking him gently. "Good evening, Doctor Hooper. 

I trust I have not startled you unduly. Do you remember when we met over the body of the woman at Christmas?"

For a moment, the image that comes to mind is that of Ernst Blofeld, the villain leader of Spectre in the James Bond films. But Toby is not a white Persian cat, and Sherlock’s brother is not an evil man. "I remember."

A patrician eyebrow is raised at the somewhat hostile tone in which she delivers this pronouncement.

She answers the implied question by sitting down on the sofa and tucking her legs up under her, placing the wine glass on the side table. "Sherlock told me enough about you last night. That you were allowed to help him with his plan only at the last minute; he’d forced you to stay out of everything else until now. I've done the post-mortem and the records will show him to have been identified. Once the Coroner releases the body, I assume you will have someone collect the cadaver?"

He nods. "He gave me that much, a chance to bury a body."

"Then why are you here? Why have you broken into my flat? Why are you sitting in my chair?" Molly’s too tired and strung out from the events of the past twenty-four hours to be polite.

A look of pain flashes briefly in the dark blue eyes. She decides that there is little physical similarity between the two brothers.

"You know what happened on the roof and the aftermath. I was not… permitted that. My contact was limited to what I could hear of their conversation on the phone. I want… no, I _need_ to know what happened after he jumped. Did the escape plan work as my brother predicted?"

"I didn’t see anything about what happened on the roof. Tell me about that first."

"From what I over-heard, it would appear that James Moriarty took his own life; shot himself."

Shocked in a way that she shouldn't be capable of feeling after the day she's just had, Molly blurts out, "Why?! Why would he do that?"

"Good question. I can only deduce from what I heard, that he believed it necessary to ensure Sherlock killed himself, too. Moriarty had snipers positioned to assassinate various individuals close to him if his people did not see Sherlock leap to his death."

Unbidden, Molly's hand creeps up to her mouth as if to stop herself from speaking. For a moment, the idea that Jim, her IT Jim, had made her into an accessory in this horrible plot makes her nauseous. She knows she'd been conned by someone so good at misdirection that they can run rings even around Sherlock, but the self-incriminating sense of failure and gullibility does not loosen its grip on her. She'd been used by both men, one unwillingly, the other had been easier to say 'yes' to, but neither had really thought about her in the process.

Mycroft interrupts her misery with a question. "What did you _see_, Doctor Hooper?"

She closes her eyes, and remembers. She had positioned herself at the window of the second floor, a bystander horrified at the sight of the plummeting Sherlock.

"Did my brother survive the fall?"

There is something so gut-wrenching in those words that, for a moment, Molly is unsure how to answer. Until now, she has been so busy dealing with the faked body and processing the "death" of the body-double for Sherlock Holmes that it had never occurred to her that she had no real evidence to prove that the real man had actually survived. That is bad enough, but realising that his brother has no idea either is somehow even worse.

She opens her eyes and stumbles to find the words. "I'm so sorry… I, um, I didn't realise you didn't know. And until you asked, it hadn't occurred to me that I don't actually know the answer to that question." Sadness takes hold of his features, and now she sees the family resemblance more clearly. In the past month, Sherlock had worn that kind of expression when he'd thought John wasn't looking.

She has to say something, _anything_, and instinctively knows better than to lie, to offer a false comfort. She senses that this man values honesty in the same way that Sherlock did. _Does_. _Not past tense_, she reminds herself before answering.

"From what I could see, it went according to plan, but I don't really _know_, do I? Not really. I saw him land on the airbag; he was taken off on the trolley and into the back of the ambulance, which drove away. That went as planned, but that's all I know; I'm sorry." The thought that Sherlock might not have survived despite all this elaborate planning makes her eyes prickle with tears.

There is a flicker of something undecipherable in his gaze. "Do accept my apologies, Doctor Hooper. I had not intended to distress you. I shall have to find the answer to my question from another source." He continues stroking the cat.

Molly can see that Toby's tail is beginning to switch. As she reaches for the solace of her wine glass, she warns, "Be careful. If he gets over-stimulated, he can become agitated."

As if he'd been waiting for his cue, the cat suddenly turns its head to clamp needle-sharp teeth into the meaty part of Mycroft's palm of the hand that had just been petting him. Startled, Mycroft flings the cat off his lap and abruptly stands up, brushing cat hairs from his lap.

"I'm sorry… should have warned you earlier." Molly's cheeks redden with embarrassment.

"No matter." He is staring at the drops of blood forming on his hand. "A minor inconvenience, nothing compared to what you and Sherlock have been through. I should offer my gratitude for your help: I am quite sure that Sherlock will have forgotten to do so. Whatever his situation is now, at least he didn't meet his end at the hands of one of Moriarty's snipers." Mycroft takes out his handkerchief and wipes the blood from his hand. "I shall bid you good night."

He gives one of those odd little smiles that doesn't reach his eyes. She'd seen that before when he'd lingered behind in the mortuary, not answering her question about how Sherlock had identified the body the face of which had been bashed beyond recognition.

"Wait."

She is exhausted but can't let him go, not like this. There are too many questions in her head, questions that Sherlock had refused to answer last night, claiming that they had to focus on getting him through his showdown with Moriarty.

She stands up and straightens her back. "What happens next? Assuming he is okay, what is he going to do? The press has reported him dead. That was important, he said. But he wouldn't tell me why."

"Sherlock did not divulge the minutiae of his plan to me. He must have told you that I did not approve of it."

Molly nods. "But that doesn't mean you haven't worked it out for yourself. He's always said you are the clever one."

Mycroft's eyebrows rise in surprise. "He said that?"

She nods, again, and then remembers Sherlock's exact words as _'he thinks he's the clever one'. _She decides against elaborating; let his brother think what he wants. She can offer him this kindness at least. "So, tell me what you think is going to happen."

"Sharing pointless speculation may carry its own risks. He has ensured that I will play no part in what he wanted to do next."

Molly sighs. She wants to spare his feelings, but she's not going to lie. "Yes, I know that what he is doing is risky. He told me that I just had to assume that he wouldn't be coming back, that whatever it is he is going to do means he's not likely to survive. He told me it's the only way, but… if my helping him means he's going to put himself in more danger, then what I did was wrong." The thought makes her eyes tear up again.

And then she gets a bit angry. Sherlock has always known how to manipulate her, and whenever she thinks things over, the anger is at herself, too. She is so gullible, so impressionable that she ends up doing whatever he wants from her. She knows, too, that whatever she thinks or feels, she will protect his secret.

Mycroft starts to collect his coat and umbrella from where he had placed them against the sofa.

Molly isn't going to let him off the hook. She knows that if she doesn't make him tell her, then she won't ever learn whether Sherlock got off the trolley alive. "If–– no, _when_ you find out about what happened and if he's alright, you will tell me. _He_ owes me that much, and if he won't be here to make good on that debt…"

Mycroft takes time to think, and then nods. Then he is in motion, out into the hall and opening the flat door.

Emboldened, she decides to up the ante. She calls out, "Assuming you'll tell me he is okay now, promise me you'll also tell me when that stops, when whatever he's doing stops, because he's dead. _Really_ dead. I deserve that much."


	2. Chapter 2

It is three days after _The Fall_, as the tabloid press have been calling it. The fall from grace, the fall from the roof_, the fall of a fake genius_. Amidst all the slanderous headlines and the repeated lies first brought forth by The Sun, Mycroft notes that there has been no media mention of Moriarty, only his thespian alter ego, Richard Brook. All that is being reported is the story of the disgraced consulting detective and the fall-out from his alleged frauds that have rocked the Metropolitan Police, whose Commissioner has instigated a full investigation into each and every one of the cases that had involved Sherlock. DI Lestrade is suspended, pending the findings of the investigation. A union representative has been appointed, and Mycroft has informed him that any legal fees will be paid, should he need to seek legal remedies. It's the least he can do, given how the man had kept an eye on Sherlock over the years.

Mycroft is keeping a low profile, working from home. Holmes is a very common name in England, so those people who know that Sherlock had been his brother are few and far between. Unfortunately, that number recently increased due to familial duties demanding his attention: registering the death, obtaining death certificates, dealing with the funeral director, trying to keep the press from harassing the remaining occupants of 221b Baker Street, whilst at the same time handling the day-to-day work of the Security & Intelligence Liaison Service. On more than one occasion, he realises that Sherlock's plan relied a great deal on Molly Hooper's willingness to lie and to falsify records. The coroner is informed; the post-mortem report filed.

_All lies._ If anyone ever finds out, it will mean Consultant Pathologist Hooper will lose her job. As he has on so many occasions over the past three days, Mycroft wonders if Sherlock had ever understood how much he is asking of the people who know of his plan.

Mycroft had attempted to contact Elizabeth ffoukes after leaving Doctor Hooper's flat. When the MI6DG had finally taken his call the next morning, the conversation had been brief and to the point.

"No, Mycroft. I can't tell you anything. It is best you don't know. Sherlock and I agreed that it would be handled this way."

"For God's sake, Elizabeth… I am just asking if he is alive!"

"For all intents and purposes, you have to assume he isn't. Act the part of the grieving family member."

"At least confirm that Moriarty is dead. That is operational intelligence I need in order to do my job."

"He is. Confirmed by forensic examination; the bullet in his brain was from his own gun. That's all I can say." She then hung up on him.

It is infuriating. He doesn't even bother trying to telephone Lady Smallwood; no point, since she owes him even less favours than Elizabeth ffoukes. He also suspects that she might not even know the answer to his question, having chosen to distance herself completely for purposes of deniability.

Ketavan has been solicitous, doing what she can to keep him from staring at the walls of his office or fixating on skimming online news sites as they dismantle everything that Sherlock has done over the past three years, sensationalising what Moriarty had made sure would leak to the papers about Sherlock's early life—the drugs, the homelessness, the rehab and the previous suicide attempts. _A dead man cannot sue for libel_. At one point the papers no longer even bother to insert the adjective _alleged_ in front of their accusations.

In the dark nights at the townhouse on South Eaton Place, Mycroft lies in his bed staring at the ceiling. How could his brother be so stupid as to have done this to himself? Despite what he'd said to Doctor Hooper, he is not certain that Moriarty took his own life. Replaying the recording of the conversation between Sherlock and the Irishman over and over again, he has come to the conclusion that it is not possible to deduce anything conclusively; there is very little data besides the words _'well, good luck with that' _and then the sound of the gun going off. Mycroft has to admit that it is possible that Sherlock had taken the decision to commit murder. Elizabeth ffoukes' assertion that the bullet that killed Moriarty came from his own gun proves nothing; Sherlock could have used it and wiped the prints clean before going through his charade to convince John Watson he was committing suicide.

There was a time when Mycroft would have bet his own life against such a murder happening; Sherlock had never displayed the sort of mindset of a killer. That's not to say that, if there was a logical reason for it, he wouldn't kill someone, but Mycroft cannot come up with such a reason in this circumstance. The recording has no signs of a struggle; clearly, the gun didn't go off by accident. Could Sherlock have taken the gun and used it in self-defence? Given the contents of the recorded conversation, it doesn't seem likely. But the whole scenario makes no sense. What had made Moriarty change his mind, going from lording it over Sherlock to claiming '_you are me_'?

He curses that fact that he'd been barred from sending his own people to the roof. He'd have been able to see the crime scene and drawn conclusions that the others will have missed. The phone had still been recording when Lestrade had appeared, but despite what the DI had assumed at the time, the people who had taken over the case were from MI6, not the S&ILS. Mycroft's service had been recused, just as he had been.

Assuming Sherlock is alive—an assumption, not a confirmed fact—what would he be doing, now? Is he already out of the country? Where would he start on this insane mission to take apart Moriarty's network? Mycroft deduces it is likely to be the USA, which makes it such a waste that Sherlock had refused to make use of his expertise. After all, the special relationship means that he could have made the necessary introductions and kept an eye on Sherlock to ensure his safety. Sherlock would naturally be operating under an alias because it would be foolish to trust anyone — let alone the leaky CIA — with his true identity, not if he wanted to keep those he was trying to save from coming to harm. Without knowing what that alias is, Mycroft knows that he will struggle to find out anything more through the few back channels he might use without arousing suspicions from MI6. He is walking a tightrope, blindfolded and without a safety net. One wrong step and he will find himself suspended for not adhering to the terms of his recusal.

A misjudgement could cost him the chance to ever know what has happened to Sherlock. Mycroft wonders whether he can trust his very deepest personal contacts in the American security services not to blab if he were to make an enquiry about any recent assets coming their way from the UK. He'd have to be very, very careful, but it might just be possible.

Is risking everything better than this perpetual nightmare of not knowing? He cannot decide.

oOoOoOoOoOo

After another two idle days and nights in the proverbial dark, Mycroft can't take it any more. Those colleagues who know about Sherlock being his brother may think him a heartless bastard, but he's had a bellyful of playing the role of the grieving brother. If it had been a simple case of suicide, no doubt civility would require the sort of banal exchanges of solicitude, the ridiculous concept of being '_sorry for your loss_'. There have been enough of those from the Parham staff for him to loathe the phrase. The hardest to fend off had been Lady Caroline** whose solicitude makes him confront the fraud that Sherlock has made him become. To protect a brother who may or may not be alive from doing whatever the hell he intends to do, Mycroft is being forced to keep at arms' length the one person from whom he might have found solace. She is one of the few people who know him well enough to be shocked by his lack of emotional reaction to the suicide story.

She's wrong, of course — not that he can tell her that. The one emotion he feels more than anything at the moment is anger, a deep-seated rage that Sherlock has put him in this position. But he cannot show it and finds himself wondering if it will eventually poison even her affection for him as the anger bleeds into his interactions with others. Mycroft has sacrificed a lot over the years for Sherlock's sake, but this may be the ultimate renunciation. The more he thinks about it, the more it rankles.

He resumes normal working procedures, projecting a business-as-usual persona. At least his colleagues who do know about Sherlock spare him the embarrassment of expressing their condolences. Because the Sun's exposé has gleefully chalked everything up to Sherlock being a fraud and a publicity-hungry charlatan, an embarrassing silence reigns at the gathering of today's Parliamentary Oversight committee meeting. This monthly concession to the demands of appearing to be responsive to the needs of MPs to be briefed is one of the routine exercises that Mycroft has to endure; it comes with the territory as head of the Security & Intelligence Liaison Service. He has to make an appearance, lest the MPs draw the wrong conclusions about his absence.

At least working has distraction value for Mycroft. Agenda items one through eight are the usual mishmash of international developments that have required operational decisions be taken that might, under UK law, have raised more than a few judges' eyebrows. Luckily for him, most are not a matter directly influencing S&ILS, so he can remain on the outside of the debates that swirl across the table.

Agenda Item Nine is more of a challenge. Lady Smallwood turns her attention to the man sitting to Mycroft's right. "Perhaps, Sir Edmund, you would care to update us on progress made to date regarding the Metropolitan Police's case against Sir Mark Allen in the complicity of UK officials in the detention and extraordinary rendition of Abdul Hakim Belhaj."

The Home Office's Permanent Secretary clears his throat.

John Garvie, MP for Rockwell South, leans forward to interrupt. "Will the case actually come to court? If not, then why the hell did all those documents get into their hands? Whose idea was _that_?"

Lad Smallwood nods to Mycroft, who finds himself explaining that it was his recommendation that the security authorities comply with the request to hand over documents. "The Justice and Security Act will give us the protection we need. The Closed Materials Procedure and the Public Interest Immunity clauses will give us protection. The CPS will decline to prosecute."

Garvie shakes his head. "What's to stop someone in the Met from leaking the documents?"

Rather dryly, Mycroft responds, "The Met lacks the intelligence to know how to separate the wheat from the chaff, Mister Garvie; very little of what we provided is actually damaging to our interests."

Beside him, Sir Edwin stiffens. "I would have thought that you, of all people, Lord Holmes, would prefer not to make any accusations against the Metropolitan Police, given your own recent experience."

The insinuation stings. Brusquely, Mycroft snaps, "My professional advice is not compromised by whatever you think may have happened to me personally."

Sir Edwin does not back down, but plasters a blatantly false version of a sympathetic smile on his face. "Well, with brothers like yours, you would certainly be forgiven for wanting to keep a low profile."

The silence is deafening. There are people in the room — the MPs in particular — who were not present when Fitzroy Ford was dealt with in 2002 so they remain blissfully unaware of the double meaning; they will assume he is referring to Sherlock. Once again, Mycroft has to control his anger that Sherlock has put him in this position, damaged his standing and clipped his wings.

_Collateral damage._ There is still a part of him willing to excuse his little brother — after all, because of what he is, Sherlock would naturally lack the intrinsic empathy to grasp what his decision would do to those left behind.

Mycroft stifles his anger and replies coldly, "Don't be naïve, Sir Edwin." To throw the MPs off the scent, he returns to the agenda item at hand. "You know as well as I do that there are ways to off-shore this problem, to rely on others who can be persuaded to do what is necessary."

Garvie, an MP who is a known human rights advocate despite his secret gambling addiction that makes his involvement in the Oversight Committee increasingly suspect, asks, "What about the CIA and FBI?"

The matter is as delicate as it is awkward, of which Garvie is unlikely to be aware. Mycroft brushes him off with a simple reply, "They can be trusted to do the right thing at the right time, I can assure you."***

"Next item," Lady Smallwood announces.

The rest of the meeting passes routinely, with both civil service and the intelligence services managing to keep the MPs feeling suitably briefed without actually giving anything serious away.

As they reach the last item on the agenda — any other business — Lady Smallwood interrupts. "Lord Holmes, I must ask you to leave the room."

"Why?" he asks in surprise.

There is an embarrassed silence. Quietly, she adds, "I should have thought the reason would be obvious."

Mycroft bristles. No doubt they would be discussing the consequences of Moriarty's demise for the state of organised crime in the UK and the other thirty-one countries which had him and his network on their radar. The idea that he should not be a part of this conversation annoys him intensely. Elizabeth ffoukes wouldn't be mentioning Sherlock's plans; of that much Mycroft is certain; the whole point of this wretched idea of his brother's is that there is complete deniability. However, now is not the time to challenge his recusal; the MPs should not be made aware of his reasons for being excluded.

As Mycroft collects his papers and stands up, Lady Smallwood turns to the minute taker sitting by her right side. "Let the minutes show that Lord Holmes left the meeting at this point."

As he walks past her to the door, he glances down and sees Vivian Norbury writing something in that peculiar shorthand of hers.

oOoOoOo

Annoyed beyond measure at this dismissal, Mycroft leaves Portcullis House and walks in high dudgeon to the Diogenes Club. There are no consolations to be had in his in-tray at his office there—nothing to keep his mind occupied more than the briefest of moments. Still, he works through the afternoon and into the evening.

When it comes time for Ketavan to go home, she pops her head into his office. "Do you need me to stay?"

He shakes his head as he lifts his eyes from the latest report on the US-Georgian Joint Maritime Operations Control Centre just opened at the Coast Guard station of Supsa on the Black Sea. Intelligence reports from Sochi show renewed Russian surveillance measures offshore, and stealth jets landing at Adler airport a kilometre from the border with Georgia. The Winter Olympics had given Putin all the excuse he needed to beef up the military capacity of the area, which is now able to intervene at will in the smouldering problems of Tbilisi with Abkhazia.

It is later, much later, after Wilder has delivered a finger of fine malt whisky to the quiet room that he is able to return to thinking about his brother. Mycroft considers worst-case scenarios. If Sherlock is alive then there is nothing to be done but to continue the charade that he is dead. Even if he has survived his very literal fall, Mycroft has to assume that the dangers implicit in this ridiculous 'mission' of his could claim his life at any point. If there is one small consolation in this ludicrous plot of Sherlock's, it is that news of it won't have reached a certain prison cell in Tbilisi.

Oh, how Ford would crow, if he ever found out. If he still had vocal cords, Mycroft could imagine him revelling in the opportunity of telling him '_I told you so'_. His half-brother has always believed that Sherlock is his own worst enemy and right now, Mycroft is sorely tempted to agree.

He is roused from his thoughts by the re-appearance of Wilder who hands him a note.

_Lady Smallwood is in the Strangers' Room._

For a moment, Mycroft finds it hard to breathe. Perhaps she's come to tell him what she wouldn't have been able to in the presence of the others this afternoon— that Sherlock is, indeed, dead.

He gets to his feet and moves quickly into the one place in the Diogenes Club where conversation is possible.

The blonde woman is sitting in the leather chesterfield chair, a cup of tea beside her. When Mycroft sinks into the seat opposite, he hesitates before looking at her as he grips the side arms of the chair.

Is he ready for this? He composes his features and then lifts his eyes so he can scan her face to deduce her news. He has already started to breathe normally again as she announces quietly, "I convinced Elizabeth that it will do no harm to tell you. He is alive… a bit battered, it has to be said, but he will heal and then he will be off to do…" she pauses, "…whatever he intends to do."

"Thank you." Folding his hands in his lap, he asks "How — no, better still — _why_ did you convince her?"

The smile is gentle. "You and I are old friends, Mycroft. I could not bear to see you in such pain."

He sniffs. "Sentiment, my dear? You surprise me."

That's when he realises that the look in her eyes is not kindness but pity.

oOoOoOoOo

Across town in a small flat, a phone on the bedside table lights up, penetrating the darkness. The bed's occupant is asleep and doesn't notice. It won't be until the morning that she opens the text to read a single word message: **alive.** Deleting it, Molly goes into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

oOoOoOoOo

"Tell me…"

His words are slurred a bit, but still vaguely recognisable as speech. Sherlock can't manage the accent; that bit seems to be off-line at the moment, as is so much else. The pain medication, the sedatives — they must be the reason why he can't think straight or make much sense right now. At least the excruciating headache is gone, replaced by a mind that moves slower than treacle. It's taken him ages to find these two words, and the process has exhausted him.

Sherlock has never met this young woman now standing beside his hospital bed, but he knows he has to pretend that he does. She's told him that she's Cecilia Sigurson, a cousin who has arrived to attend in his Aunt Elizabeth's place to inform him to know that pressing things regarding his plan are being taken care of while he recovers from his accident.

_No accident._

He struggles to put the rest of the words together. Eyes tightly shut against the light he can't bear the sounds of the hospital around him. Every squeaky wheel of a trolley, hum of a monitor, buzz of a fluorescent tube—they all eat into what few shreds of concentration he still has available.

It comes out as a whisper, "… John alive?"

He hears the sharp intake of breath, and then a blurted, "Yes, of course. Everyone's _fine._ It's you we're worried about."

Someone — he presumes a nurse — arrives, her presence heralded by that strangely unique sound of crepe-soled shoes on a linoleum floor. "That's enough now, Miss Sigurson. He needs rest."

_No_, he wants to say, but the words can't take shape, because something weird is happening.

"Nurse, something's wrong…"

Someone is speaking, but the words make no sense to Sherlock. Sounds swell, distort, flowing into his head at high volume and with an intense echo as if they were ricocheting around in a barrel. Somewhere there is an alarm going off. He tastes iron and smells cordite as a faint memory of blood and grey matter splattered on a concrete roof takes over. The pool of blood grows until it starts to black out everything else.****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Lestrade's POV on the events on Barts Roof is covered in a story called The Great Man in my Got My Eye on You series.  
**Lady Caroline Herbert is an OC first introduced in The Shooting Party.  
*** Abdul Hakim Belhaj is a real case, and the Metropolitan Police did make an absolute hash of things before the case was eventually dropped. Why the Oversight Committee is considering Moriarty is clear. Intrinsic to my universe of stories involving Moriarty and starting all the way back with Collateral Damage is the fact that he is known to the intelligence services in the 32 countries in which he has operations. Key to Moriarty's ability to keep his freedom despite being known is a network of Fallen Angels (people of influence who protect him from prosecution). My series, Game Theory, is about how Moriarty targeted Sherlock in order to capture Mycroft as one such Fallen Angel. A number of the UK Fallen Angels are identified in those stories. The other reason why no one has attempted to capture or kill Moriarty is because he has a number of "dead man's switches" in place to ensure that any country that attempts to do so will be faced with an escalating level of violent crimes that will be perpetrated in the case of his death. This was covered in the story Sowing Dissent in the Fallen Angel series. It is the whole reason why Sherlock has taken on the one-man mission, to ensure deniability and that no one will be able to blame the British government for it. Lars Sigurson is an alias he has developed to tackle Moriarty from within the network, to make Jim's downfall appear to be a case of internecine warfare within the network.  
****Recovering from a TBI (traumatic brain injury) is no fun. Even when there is no skull fracture, the damage can be significant and take a long time to clear. It can lead to personality changes, irritability, inability to concentrate, and in the early days of recovery in particular, sensory processing issues and impaired cognition.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The process of exiting takes time, both for the one leaving and the people who get left behind.

—**_Five Weeks Later—_**

Lestrade fumbles for the key in his pocket, as he stares at the front door. Standing there, he has to battle the sense of something not being right, and it's not just the fact that the person he wishes were on the other side of it is dead and buried. Greg realises that there is something _odd_ about the door. In his head, a once familiar voice intones, _"as ever, you see but do not observe." _The loss that is invoked by this memory jolts him into realisation: the door knocker under the silver 221b is hanging straight down. Sherlock always gave it a twist askew whenever he'd walked in.

Taking a deep breath, the DI puts the key in the lock and slips inside. There is no familiar Belstaff hanging on the peg; no scarf.

He's still looking around the hall when Mrs Hudson comes out of her flat. "Oh, it's you, Detective Inspector."

"Not anymore. I'm officially suspended, Mrs Hudson. And I'm not here on official business." Greg dangles the key. "Returning this. He gave it to me on the first day he moved in."

Her face crumples a bit before she shakes her head. "Oh, he told me you had one. I don't mind if you keep it. You never know, it might be needed. John won't answer the door these days, and if I'm away at my sister's then someone needs to be able to get in."

He doesn't bother to hide his grimace. "Still not good?"

"He just sits there in his chair, all day and half the night, staring at the empty chair. He's hardly eating, won't talk."

The fact that such a description had been occasionally used for Sherlock makes it sound even worse. Greg sighs; "I thought maybe the funeral would have helped… You know, provide a bit of closure."

She is still shaking her head. "If anything, he's worse since then."

The funeral had been a very private occasion in West Sussex, far from the prying eyes of the press and the gawping public. The Coroner's inquest had been mercifully quick, the body released swiftly. Mycroft had invited only Greg, Mrs Hudson and John to attend the short service at the Parham chapel and the internment. Greg had learned only after the fact that Molly Hooper had also been invited but declined to attend. There had been a handful of others present, unknown to Greg, and he had presumed them to be Estate workers or family friends. The service had been short: no elegy, no sermon, only organ music without hymns. The vicar conducting the service kept to the official words.

It had seemed woefully inadequate. Too hasty, almost furtive.

_He deserves more than this,_ Greg had thought as the coffin was lowered. _He deserves something that is about him, instead of some generic church service for a person who was a sworn atheist. _What little John had said to him that day had echoed the same, but Greg isn't surprised that John had had neither the energy nor the will to contribute to Mycroft's planning.

And that was the reason why Greg was here today.

"Shall I bring you up some tea?"

Mrs Hudson's question cuts through Greg's memory of the last time he'd seen John at the funeral. He had been ashen-faced, grey with grief, uncommunicative.

When he nods, she adds, "I'll put some scones on a plate; try to get him to eat, please?"

oOoOoOoO

The air is even staler than usual, dust swirling in the light streaming in between the nearly fully drawn sitting room curtains. After the tea has been delivered, and Mrs Hudson has clucked about them like a mother hen, Greg leans back in Sherlock's chair and surveys the wreckage sitting across from him.

It's obvious that John hasn't shaved in days; his clothes look like he's slept in them for the same amount of time. Or, rather, he'd _tried_ to sleep—the bags under his eyes are telling Greg that whatever amount of time the man has spent in the crumpled shirt and trousers, it hasn't involved much shuteye. The face is haggard. John has lost weight and it accentuates the wrinkles he's always had.

Those bloodshot eyes are looking at Greg now with a slightly pained expression—as if the man resents Greg's occupancy of the chair he'd chosen.

Only after Mrs Hudson leaves them does John stir.

"Why are you here?" It comes out softly, as if John is unused to speaking.

Greg feels compelled to justify his presence. "Ever since I saw you at the funeral, you've not been answering your phone or replied to my texts or emails."

John looks away from him, over towards the music stand in front of the window. As best as Lestrade can tell, nothing has been moved in the flat since Sherlock had died. But the moment he thinks that, he realises he's wrong: the police would have searched the flat thoroughly, probably leaving the place a mess after Sherlock had absconded, taking John as his 'hostage'. Following his release from Snow Hill Police Station the next day, John must have carefully tidied everything up, all back into place exactly as Sherlock would have left it. The violin case is back on top of the printer; there is sheet music on the stand. The whole place feels as if Sherlock could appear at any moment, coming down the hall from his bedroom to complain that the case Lestrade is offering is barely a six and hardly worth wasting time on. The effort that John would have had to make to re-establish this normality says too much about the pain he must be feeling.

It hurts Greg, too. The whole place reverberates with the absence of Sherlock, and he feels those echoes more acutely than most would. After all, he had been here at Baker Street on the first day Sherlock had moved his things in, days before John had entered his life. Whenever Greg had visited the flat since then, it had been filled with the life and clutter of the two men sharing the same space. As much as it pains him to look around now, he can't even begin to imagine what John must feel like. Every moment would be defined by the absence of the person who should be here.

There's a pressing need to fill the silence of the flat that has turned into a mausoleum. "I'm sorry I haven't visited before now. Been a little tied up with the internal investigation." 

"Why bother coming here at all?"

If that is an accusation, it's a valid one. Greg's difficulties dealing with his own loss—that of a friend and colleague, potentially his job and certainly his reputation—have made it hard to find anything to offer to someone who has lost even more. All Greg could offer in place of answers he doesn't have are prevarication and platitudes which he loathes getting and suspects John does, too, so he refrains.

Today, he has finally dragged his feet up the stairs because he has information that needs to be conveyed; he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a leaflet. "I was wondering if you'd seen this," he says as he hands it across.

John is visibly reluctant to take it, so Greg explains. "There is to be a memorial event, held the day after tomorrow at Wilton Music Hall, in honour of Sherlock."

John glances at the leaflet briefly and gives a slow nod. "Yeah, I know. Henry Knight came here. I wouldn't see him. He gave one of those to Mrs Hudson."

Henry had begged Greg to do whatever he could to make John Watson attend.

Greg opts for honesty to start. "Then you know that Knight is reaching out to all the people who Sherlock helped. He's angry that the press is so full of accusations of him being a fraud that he wants to bring together clients, friends, people Sherlock got to know well over the years… All to prove the point that the newspapers have got it wrong. I've agreed to attend; Henry hardly had to work at it to convince me. According to him, hundreds of people have already contacted him through the Facebook page he set up."

"What does any of that have to do with me?" John's expression doesn't waver from the vacant detachment that seems to be his default these days.

Greg is astounded. "You, of all people, know that Sherlock's cases changed the lives of hundreds of people for the better. Just go look at the page! Stories from all kinds of people, a lot of them before you even got to know him. It isn't just the cases; some of the Homeless Network have put their stories there and lots of them are coming to Wilton Hall. According to Knight, people like Raz and Angel are going to be there."

John is impassive and shrugs. "It doesn't matter who shows up; nothing is going to change the fact that he's dead."

Greg explodes. "_It's not about bringing him back to life!_ It's about stopping other people from thinking he was a fraud, about restoring his reputation. It's about showing some love and respect for the man. You, of all people, _have to be there."_

"Why?" John shakes his head, unmoved by Greg's outburst. "I'm not important."

Greg decides that he's going to have to up the ante if he's ever going to convince John. "Yes, you bloody well are. If you don't come, people—the thousands of people who read your blog— will think that you agree with the bloody newspapers, that you think he really was some fraud. I know better, but they won't, because my presence isn't going to matter. Christ, John; just imagine the headlines. The hacks will see your absence as vindication of all their lies. I swear if I have to handcuff and frogmarch you there myself, you're going to be there to show the world what he meant to you."

"I can't…." John has to stop, the pain all too evident in the quaver in his voice.

"Yes, you can, because Mrs Hudson and I will be there. We won't let the press get to you. You don’t have to give a speech or anything. Just being there is enough."

John shakes his head. "What do I care what the press says? Nothing I do or say now matters. It's too late. I should have done something. Seen it coming, taken some sort of action to stop him." He points at the leaflet. "Nothing that happens on Wednesday makes a difference."

"It won't bring him back, but it will do something to restore his reputation."

"He didn't give a damn about that and you know it."

"He made it look like he didn't, but you can't look me in the eye and tell me you never noticed that he _does_—did—care a lot what people close to him think about him. You and I and all those he helped _do_ give a damn. So, I will be here to collect you and Mrs Hudson at 11 o'clock on Wednesday. I'm not taking no for an answer."

As he leaves, Greg snags a scone off the plate, hoping that he's done enough to shake John out of his lethargy.

oOoOoOoO

** _—Two days later—_ **

"Hello, _auntie..._ About time…"

"Well, you know how it is. So busy; I hope Cecelia has been keeping you company."

"I loathe minions."

"She'd take offence at the term. She's always had a soft spot for you."

"She can p…p…piss off."

"No need to be rude." Elizabeth chafes under the constraint of role-playing. The nurse who is pushing the wheelchair to the end of the paved path is being a nuisance, because her presence means she can't talk freely. Sherlock is equally annoyed; the scowl that had greeted her arrival has not shifted on bit, despite her best acting. Sensing their mood, the nurse pushing the chair tries to fill the silent tension with inane advice about how relatives can be a wonderful source of support after a head injury.

Finally, her patience exhausted, the MI6 DG interrupts, "Let me do this." She uses surprise to nudge the nurse aside so she can seize the handles of the wheelchair. "You can go back inside; I need to speak with my nephew in private."

Startled into stopping by the abrupt order, the nurse asks, "Do you want me to stay, Mister Sigurson?"

"Piss off, too."

Affronted, she sniffs and mutters "On your head be it, as long as you accept all responsibility." 

The two of them watch her stomp off.

Once she is out of earshot, Elizabeth returns her gaze to Sherlock who no longer looks familiar. As the bruises have faded, he's let a beard grow. Someone has trimmed it neatly; the reddish blond tint is in line with the short hair he's growing back; the craniotomy to relieve the pressure caused by the swelling had left parts of his head shaved. As soon as he could make his intentions known, her agent who has been keeping her updated said he'd asked to be shorn of the rest. He's dyeing the fuzz coming in a brownish blond to go with the Norwegian passport photo she's had made to his specifications.

When they reach the end of the gravel path, Elizabeth is relieved to see Sherlock is able to use the crutches that he's been carrying to transfer himself from the wheelchair onto the wooden bench. She decides not to comment about his grimace of pain. She can't tell if it's from the stable fracture of the right iliac wing of his pelvis or the damage to his right shoulder from the dislocation. The doctors say that his healing is progressing, but he's being rationed PT because he keeps pushing himself too hard.

She's more worried about the psychological assessments. The therapists are debating the degree to which there may be co-morbid PTSD, because they can't agree on whether the patient is exhibiting personality changes or not. The fact that the MI6 agent masquerading as Lars' niece has been instructed to say that she doesn't know him well isn't helping the doctors come to a conclusion about his abrupt, rude behaviour, the bursts of anger, the lack of communication about what he is thinking or feeling.

Elizabeth's come to see him face-to-face because she has a suggestion. Looking at Mycroft's increasingly haggard look across the table during the various meetings, Lady Smallwood has urged Elizabeth to go for a Plan B; she is going to have to get more involved if this plan of Sherlock's is going to get off the ground, even at this late a stage. The idea is predicated on him recovering, and right now she has her doubts.

Deciding to start on a conversational basis, Elizabeth asks, "Did you know that there is a memorial event being held in your honour today? Organised by grateful clients and people you've helped. Sort of a riposte to all the media coverage. I can get you a guest list if you'd like."

He shakes his head. "Don't care. What …happened …ah…three snipers? Are…" Sherlock's forehead creases as the words run out. The doctors have said he is having trouble with his memory, especially when speaking, and the pace of his words is often odd.

"… Lestrade, Mrs Hudson….John…" He takes a deep breath, then finishes with a one-word question:"…safe?"

She has been warned about this consequence of the brain injury—expressive aphasia, where the sufferer struggles to put sentences together. Apparently, the therapists here are working with him and things are improving. But it is worrying her.

"Tell me." It's a command that pulls her back to the moment. "Sergeant Hanson, the police officer who targeted your DI, is in custody. He never met Moriarty; the cut-out was Sebastian Moran. He was being black-mailed for gambling debts and his family were hostages. Once he was convinced that he could speak without threatening them, he spilled the beans. He's pleaded guilty to corruption, avoided a trial, but he'll do prison time."

Sherlock's eyes don't shift from the flower border where he has fixed his gaze.

"And...?"

The angry impatience in his tone is more strident than she would like. The medical reports say he is volatile, subject to mood swings and occasionally displaying aggressive behaviour. Elizabeth wonders how much of this is due to the brain injury, as the doctors are suggesting, and how much to his frustration with his situation. Perhaps some part of it is just role-playing the character of Lars Sigurson?

Still, he's owed an answer to his question, so she offers one. "Mrs Hudson's sniper has been identified. The man she thought of as a Polish handyman is Boris Yerinilko, a Russian. Unfortunately, he left the country before you recovered consciousness. We think he is in Yekaterinburg now."

Sherlock waves a hand dismissively. "Protect… her…must."

"We are. She's under surveillance, as is Watson."

"The third…" he draws a breath and stiffens his shoulders. "John's… You don't know… who… where," he concludes his deduction.

_Damn. His skills are coming back to life a lot faster than the speech aphasia._ "Correct," she admits.

"Moran." The declaration is followed by an accusatory silence.

"How do you know it was Moran?"

He rolls his eyes in disgust at her challenging his conclusion.

The idea worries her. If Moran had been at the hospital when Sherlock jumped, then he might have seen him survive; that would jeopardise the whole mission.

She has to ask, "If he was there and targeting Watson, could he know about your escape?"

"Mor…" It's as if the name is too hateful to say. "…. Mori…" The stutter comes to a halt, forcing Sherlock to take another deep breath. He raises his arms as if taking aim through a rifle scope. "Barts… angle… Moran…behind John…no…see the airbag… I'm dead."

"Well, thank goodness for that small mercy."

"Goodness has nothing to…d…do with it."

"We are keeping an eye on Watson. He's not taking things well; I have to say."

She's decided against telling Sherlock that the doctor is clearly clinically depressed. She doesn't want to increase the pressure on Sherlock; he's struggling badly enough as it is. Today she needs a definitive answer to another question. "I have to ask you something because the evidence collected at the scene of the crime was inconclusive."

"What?"

The one-word question is easy for him to ask; she wonders how easy it will be for him to answer. Still, the law is the law. If Sherlock Holmes committed a murder, she needs to know. "We've decided to interpret the evidence in a way that says Moriarty or, rather, the person whose DNA is registered as Richard Brook, killed himself. I need to know if that is really true."

"I ta…told your…_niece_."

"I need to hear it from you."

"He killed himself."

She's watching to see if there are any tells, any signs that he might be lying. Oddly, Elizabeth realises that she isn't able to tell. That is proof enough that he will be able to take on the mission when he recovers from his injuries. His lying will have to be bullet-proof. Lars cannot afford to be caught out in any mistakes.

She's still pondering the significance of this when Sherlock reaches his hands out. "Laptop…?!"

_Bugger._ She has been hoping that he would have forgotten that he'd asked his 'cousin' for it. Maybe his memory isn't as bad as the doctors seem to think.

She decides to stall. "Not yet. The neurologist says you need to take things more slowly, and so does the physio. You're trying to do too much, too fast. They worry you're in danger of undoing the progress you've made."

"_NOW!"_

This comes out as a shout, accompanied by a slap of his hand on the arm of the bench, making Elizabeth flinch. He turns his blazing blue eyes on her in a glare that would melt metal.

Before she can react, out comes a torrent of words, uttered in staccato, a veritable machine-gun of chopped up syllables, with a deep quick snatch of breath taken between each burst. "Wasting time…Lars… take control _fast_… uh… now… take months…_years_ …network going to ground… _Give me laptop_!"

He's angry—no, beyond angry, on the brink of losing control.

She knows she has only a few seconds to rescue the situation. "Going off half-healed means you won’t last long. If you're not fit enough to walk or fluently hold a conversation, then you won’t survive long enough to do anything useful. If you were one of my agents…"

"I'm not!" He interrupts with a barely stifled shout.

She sighs before continuing, "Yes, I _know_ that, but I still have a duty of care."

"No… you don't."

"Your brother will eat me alive if I disregard your health."

"He's doesn't know… anything…er…tell him, I'm dead…doesn't know about Lars….you delay?…self-discharge. Get on…better without you."

Elizabeth knows that he has the legal right to leave when he wants; it's up to her to try to convince him to stay long enough to heal. In the field, she does not rate his chances of surviving long in his current state.

"I could always have you arrested. Lars Sigurson is a wanted man in Norway. A Europe-wide arrest warrant would hold you in place for a while."

He scoffs. "No…bluff…ing. Mycroft… his… '_told you so'_…too emba...barrassing... for you."

"Can we compromise?"

He closes his eyes and sighs. Elizabeth knows that she is tiring him out, and hopes that it will help him see the sense of delaying. She waits patiently, knowing he isn't a patient man, least of all with himself when he is in this state.

Eventually, Sherlock opens his eyes to ask, "Why?"

She's had this answer prepared for days. "Because you know your chances of success will be better if you start off with some ground support to your work. Whatever you were planning to do, I think I can get you at work faster than you'd be able to on your own. I propose a half-way house. If I pass Lars onto the USA as a turncoat with immunity from prosecution, you can get Langley's help in taking the network down. Doing the US without that help will be much, much harder."

Her suggestion provokes a huff and then, " Maybe…"

She waits.

Eventually, he takes a very deep breath. "Laptop now!"

She tries a flanking manoeuvre. "I'll give it to your neurologist."

"No …won't stay… long enough to sign…release papers...I'm done."

She should know better than try to get the better of a Holmes. Taking out of her pocket a white handkerchief, she waves it, laughing. "I surrender, but only on the terms I've said—next stop, Langley, Virginia."

There is no immediate response, and she worries that she may have over-played her hand. The silence is broken by the harsh churring of a magpie, somewhere up in the copper beech behind the bench. The birdsong that has been a background soundtrack to this conversation suddenly stops.

Finally, Sherlock smiles. "Alright."


	4. Chapter 4

The private jet lands at Biggin Hill. This time when the wheels hit the tarmac, Victor has no fluttering nerves, no anxiety about being caught where he shouldn't be. No need to hide, no need to pretend. Secrecy no longer serves a purpose, for Mycroft no longer has any reason to care whether Victor returns to London.

His proper passport examined, Victor boards the helicopter waiting for him and keeps his eyes closed for the whole of the journey to the Battersea heliport. He has no reason to want to look at a cityscape that only reminds him of what he has lost. _I never was fascinated by this place the way Sherlock was._

"Are you alright, sir? You seem to be in pain."

Victor looks at the chauffeur, really making a note of him for the first time. He must have walked from the heliport to the car on total auto-pilot. That's been happening too often these days—losing track of the real world because he is too wrapped up in the war going on in his mind.

The man is holding open the door of the black jag, his face showing concern, as he adds, "Are you in need of medical assistance? I can take you to St Thomas' hospital; it's not far."

Shaking his head, Victor snarls, "No. Just get me to Whitechapel. You've been sent the address."

As he settles into the leather seat, he lets his head fall back against the headrest. Victor knows he is tired. So tired that his exhaustion is a tangible, physical thing: it twists his insides, makes it impossible to eat, sleep or think rationally. He used to be good at sleeping on planes, but in these circumstances, it's hardly surprising that rest had eluded him on the flight from San Francisco. Dreams about Sherlock's suicide have taken firm hold of his nights, so he avoids sleep these days. Only when he's on the brink of collapse does he concede defeat, resorting to drug-induced oblivion to stop himself from being aware of what is going on in his head. Being awake is almost as bad; when he doesn't force himself to focus on something practical, his conscience drives him to despair of ever-shifting images of Sherlock on their last weekend together.

He's well and truly haunted.

Victor knows he looks awful. He hasn't shaved in a week, his clothes are rumpled, and he can't even remember what day it was when he put them on. No wonder that the driver had thought him ill. If it weren't for the fact that his billionaire status allows him to act eccentrically, Victor is sure that someone would have intervened before now.

If only there were such a person in his life. There is no ex-wife, no lover, no friend or colleague left to look after him now. None of them matters anymore, because none of them could _compare_. Colleagues, even friends Victor had once considered close, are now giving him a wide berth. He's chased everyone away, preferring solitude to attempting to explain the raw wound that is making him this way.

_It's over, really over now_.

As the car chews its way through south London traffic, a fresh wave of loss hits him hard like a blow, robbing him of his ability to breathe. For the past six weeks—ever since he'd received the news of Sherlock's death—Victor has lived in a state of emotional turmoil, one moment filled with despair and crushing loss, the next having that sadness blown away by an anger and rage too fierce for anyone to soothe with the kinds of polite platitudes at which Sherlock would have scoffed. Victor had gone through the motions, done what was required, mouthed the words that people expected to hear but inside, hidden from everyone, there was a hollowness that hurt, really hurt.

When the car brakes rather sharply and the driver hits his horn, muttering "bloody cyclists", Victor keeps his eyes on the back of the seat in front of him. He cannot bear to look; even the thought of a man on a bicycle brings back memories of following a Lycra-clad Sherlock on the roads outside Cambridge. There is no corner of England left that does not remind him of what he'd once had.

It's been six weeks since the awful news had reached him, and for six weeks, he has been trying to get either John Watson or Mycroft Holmes to respond to his calls, emails and letters. Their silence is part and parcel of his rage, a fuse that goes off periodically with explosive force. He needs answers, reasons… some manner of explanation at least. Yet, there's nothing. _Not a word_. It's like Victor is a ghost, wiped from existence all those years ago by Mycroft. The media firestorm that had surrounded Sherlock's death has barely abated. In the furore, even Victor's lawyers based in London have been denied any access to either Watson or the elder Holmes. The police are saying nothing, too wrapped up in their own investigations and damage control to limit their PR exposure to the toxic story.

For forty-two days and nights, Victor has been asking questions, yet it all eventually distils down to the same one: _what should I have done differently?_ He's come to London because he needs that answer, and if he has to rip it out of Mycroft and Watson, well, then so be it.

When the driver drops him off at the corner of Cable Street and Ensign Street, Victor makes his way to the pedestrian alleyway that leads to Wilton Music Hall, cursing the fact that he's been forced to conduct his personal investigation in this most unusual place. That said, at least it is public, and they won't be able to stop him from showing up. He has been watching the Facebook page set up by Henry Knight ever since it first appeared, glad that at least someone is willing to offer an alternative view to the filth that has been printed in the papers. Watson's silence is baffling; Mycroft's infuriating. Some of the newspapers have suggested that Watson must have known he was a fraud and did nothing, so is as culpable as the '_disgraced detective'_, as the Mail on Sunday has dubbed Sherlock.

As soon as he turns the corner onto Grace's Alley, Victor nearly collides with a crowd. He joins a slow-moving queue of people talking quietly amongst themselves. The line snakes down the pavement to the front entrance of the hall. A pair of young men in front of him is talking to an older woman. One wearing a UCL hoodie is telling her, "He believed us when no one else would. Everyone thought we were crazy; the idea that what was in the comic book was coming true."*

The woman is dressed oddly—a mismatched collection of attire topped by an anorak that has seen better days and prior owners bigger than she. It's the shoes that give her away as a street person; no one else would be wearing a man's size eleven trainers stuffed with newspapers to keep them on her feet. "Yeah, he were like that. 'elped me get to see my Angel; she was in such a bad way, arrested by the filth for som'at she didn't do. Shezza got her off, even an apology. She says he were a life-saver. Wouldn't take no money, just said she'd return the favour someday."*

The noise of a jet overhead makes Victor look up at the grey sky in the narrow gap between the buildings. Probably on its way to City Airport. He wonders why this place had been chosen for the event. Quite some distance from Baker Street, perhaps it was because the wealthy people who lived in the West End are not as willing to admit how much Sherlock had made a difference to their lives. Wearily, he adds this question to the pile that he's been working on ever since he left London the last time.

_Why did you say you didn’t love me?_

_Did Watson never step up to tell you that he loved you back?_

_Why did you care so damned much about that Moriarty?_

_Why did you kill yourself?_

_How could I—should I— have stopped you? And if not me, then who?_

_Why wasn't my love enough for you?_

As the line of people moves slowly forward, Victor has to grapple with the flood of emotions that threaten to take charge of him. He's had to admit to himself that he's been a mess ever since Sherlock had told him to leave London. Once he was back in San Francisco, he'd been like an automaton, sleepwalking through the flurry of press attention that had greeted the stock launch, dismissing the congratulations of his colleagues as GeneTech's share price soared and investors came flocking to the new fund. None of that could rouse him from the paralysing sense of loss and impending doom.

_Why the hell did I leave it to John Watson to look after him? What reason did I have to trust the man to do the right thing?_

Over and over again, when alone, Victor would replay in his mind every word, every touch, every moment in Sherlock's company that weekend, seeking an answer to the question that plagued him—why did Sherlock say he didn't love him? The words didn't match what he had communicated through their intimacy, which had felt like slipping with ease into exactly where they had left off all those years ago. It was as if Sherlock's body had been willing to say what the man had refused to admit in words.

Victor had tried to console himself with the idea that Sherlock hadn't just fallen out of love with him or decided to deny the obvious; he had simply fallen in love with someone else. On their last night together, Victor had decided that if he couldn't have Sherlock, then at least he'd do what he could to help Sherlock be happy.

But then he'd actually _met_ John Watson and come very close to changing his mind. His conversation with Watson that Monday morning is carved in slashing strokes, chiselled on his memory; he can remember being dismayed that the doctor did not seem to understand at all what Sherlock so desperately needed. The more he rehearsed their exchange, the more certain Victor had become that John Watson would fail to rise to the challenge that he'd set him—_love him, be what he needs you to be_.

Even as he'd been airborne on his way back to San Francisco, a secret hope had formed; if John rejected Sherlock, would he then be willing to try again with Victor? That thought alone had kept Victor going. He'd waited thirteen years for Sherlock; he could wait a bit longer if that is what it would take for Sherlock to get over Watson. It might have taken Sherlock some time to process what to Victor had seemed obvious: that John wasn't worthy of his love, wasn't ready to accept what Sherlock felt for him, let alone do anything about it. That Sherlock was in need of such love had been plain as day, and Victor knew he could have made peace with the fact that he'd have been Sherlock's second choice. He could have lived with that because once, _he'd_ been the first and only for Sherlock, and if Victor hadn't messed things up so badly all those years ago, they could have been together since—Sherlock and John wouldn't even have met, would they?

The entire weekend Victor had kept wondering why Sherlock was so distraught, so tightly wound up, so stressed; had it been because John was playing hard to get? Or had it been due to James Moriarty? Victor had pondered that question until the morning that he'd seen on the BBC News website the shocking sight of Moriarty walking free from the Old Bailey—just as Sherlock had predicted. He had been sorely tempted to contact John Watson then and there just so he could say something along the lines of '_I told you so_' and to ask him once again, to _beg_ him to do whatever was necessary to keep Sherlock safe.

Or stand aside and let Victor do it.

But something had held him back; perhaps mostly what Sherlock had said about it not being Victor's place to give advice or try to interfere in his life. Victor had left London with a sense of helplessness and losing control, and with Sherlock's parting words—_I don't love you—_ ringing in his ears. He knows that some of what he'd said to John that last morning had been payback for the way he'd been hurt. Rushing in after the trial might have ended up with him angering both Sherlock and John, driving them closer together than ever. All these warring thoughts had left Victor paralysed with indecision. In the end, his fear of being rejected yet again held him back.

_Unforgivable. _Given what he knows now, Victor should have made contact. Just like during and after his trip to Australia, he'd done the worst possible thing—nothing. He'd left Sherlock behind blithely thinking that he'd be back soon and able to make it up to him.

This time he should have known better. Just as back then, when he'd been oblivious to what was going on in Sherlock's head, Victor knows now that he'd made a fatal error. He'd felt the tension, the heaviness of distracted melancholy in Sherlock, yet taken a step back; procrastination had become easier than making a decision. As Moriarty disappeared from view and the days turned into weeks, Victor had dared to hope that perhaps the worst was behind them. Would John be there for Sherlock? Could—no, _should_— Victor keep away? When would it be safe to contact Sherlock, saying '_Watson's had his chance, now let me back in_'?

All that came to a crashing end when the Sun newspaper had trailed the upcoming exposé about Sherlock; that night Victor had known his time was up, and he'd bought a ticket and emailed Sherlock: '_I'm coming. Hang on_'_._ While packing his bag, Victor had been phoned by his news service to pass on the report that Sherlock had evaded arrest and gone into hiding, with a hostage. He'd sent the second text: '_Stay safe; I'll be there in eleven hours._'

He can remember standing there in the San Francisco airport terminal, overnight bag in his hand, passport out when his phone rang again. It was his PA, forwarding him a link to the news about Sherlock's suicide.

The memory still hurts; it's a knife of regret that twists in again, and again, lacerating everything.

"You okay?"

A voice behind him brings him back to the present, and Victor stumbles forward, to close up the space that has opened between him and the young men in front. He draws in a series of breaths, trying to calm himself, as the line shuffles forward toward the doors. These little episodes of losing touch with reality are depressingly frequent. Wrestling with guilt, Victor stopped going anywhere near work; it just reminds him of how much he owed Sherlock for turning his entire life right-side-up when his wretched father had tried to control his every move. When his staff had begun to get in touch to ask what was going on, he'd responded that he was taking a '_well-deserved break_' and signed over authority to take decisions to the rest of the board. The CFO of GeneTech would be the acting CEO for now; Or maybe forever. Victor doesn't give a damn about the company anymore. He'd happily give the whole thing away for a chance to see Sherlock alive and well.

Friends tried to call after the news of his alleged sabbatical became public, but he's not bothered to pick up the phone. When the voicemailbox was full, he'd terminated the service. He's spent hours on the phone to London, trying to find a private detective service that would be able to get to the bottom of just what had happened. The media firestorm does not help; quite a few companies refused even to consider working for anyone trying to restore Holmes' reputation. He's ended up shouting at a few who had said it is in the hands of the police now so they couldn't be involved. He's ranted and raved at people to no avail.

Victor is alone now, with only his grief to keep him company.

"Welcome."

A calm female voice shakes him out of his nightmare. Standing just outside the entrance, in front of two rather beat-up and paint-chipped double wooden doors, a heavily pregnant woman in an Indian sari introduces herself, "I am Mrs Cecil Forrester, and I am someone that Sherlock Holmes helped." 

He glances over her shoulder into the foyer, his eyes trying to see beyond her for the quarry that has brought him here today.

Somewhat surprised by his lack of eye contact, the woman continues, "All of us here today are people he helped, in one way or another. Are you one of us? Or are you from the press?" she asks with just a hint of suspicion.

"Not press," he reassures her, turning his attention back to her. "A friend. And yes, he did help me. I owe him…" Victor has never tried to put it into words to a stranger before, but something in her dark brown eyes gives him reason to do so now. "I owe him everything—who I am, what I have done with my life. Well, not _everything_; the mistakes I've made…." He can't help the fact that his voice breaks a bit and his eyes prickle, "…those are mine, not his."

"Well said, sir. _Namaste._ You are welcome." She leads him into the hall foyer, and another person steps forward to take her place in the doorway, a big bearded man, with a receding hairline, sporting a pony tail. Victor hears him introducing himself to the next person in the queue, "Hello, I'm Angelo; Sherlock Holmes saved my sorry arse from a murder charge. Are you here as a friend?"

Victor finds it reassuring that the organisers are careful about who they let in. Given all the media frenzy, it is wise. Victor has used the same logic to convince himself that it was only realistic that Mycroft would have kept secret the timing and location of Sherlock's funeral. Victor's contacts in London could only tell him after the fact that it had been held privately at Parham; the fact had only been winkled out days after it had taken place, too late for Victor to have found a way to gate-crash. His one attempt to contact that gamekeeper he'd once spoken to many years ago had failed.

It had been the housekeeper, Mrs Walters who had told him the news. "Oh my. Sorry, Frank Wallace died three months ago. He'd been retired for years. Can I ask why you are calling? I could put you through to the current gamekeeper."

He'd declined; given that he'd made up the name he was using to phone, Victor could hardly explain to her why he'd been calling. No doubt, Mycroft would have briefed all of the staff on how to handle any calls from strangers about Sherlock.

To the left of the Wilton Music Hall foyer, Mrs Forrester takes him to an open book on the counter. Above it is a sign designating the spot as the box office_._ "This is the book of condolences. We'd like you to sign it if you can. But we understand that there may be people who wish to remain anonymous."

Victor nods. "On my way out, perhaps."

She gives a sympathetic nod and takes him a couple of steps further into the foyer. But instead of going up the stairs, she leads him through a doorway to the left, which opens onto the concert hall.

As he takes in the sight, she explains, "There is no formal service—Mister Holmes was not a religious man, but the chairs near the stage are set up for a concert by a musician who says he saved his life by finding the thief who stole his violin." She glances at her watch. "It starts in about half an hour's time. After the concert, there will be refreshments in the bar—it is across from the box office in the front. Before then, please go share your memories and bear witness to those he has helped."

She gestures to the round tables that have people sitting around them, listening to each other. "If you are able and willing to add to our website your reasons for believing that Sherlock Holmes was a good man, then please speak to the man sitting at the table with the laptop. He is Mister Henry Knight, the organiser of today's celebration." She clasps her hands together, bowing her head before leaving him to return to the front door.

Being so tall, Victor can see over the heads of most but not all people in the room; he can't be entirely sure that his quarry is not on the floor. If they aren't here yet, he just hopes that John and Mycroft will show; perhaps the organiser will know if they are coming. He considers approaching Mister Knight, but there is a queue of people talking to him, and Victor is reluctant to stand in line again just yet. Crowds of people bother him these days.

He walks along the sidewall to the edge of the rows of chairs in front of the stage to take in the odd ramshackle décor of the building. It's as if a restoration project had run out of money very rapidly. Exposed brick, faded paint, scuffed floorboards everywhere, but the seating before the stage is new, and the lighting and sound equipment are in keeping with a modern music venue.

He stops beside another young man who is eyeing the room as warily as him. Brown-haired, well dressed in a casual sort of way, the man is stroking one of the strange thin, spiral-shaped columns that hold up the balcony. Victor is drawn to him for some reason he cannot fathom.

Tentatively, he asks, "Have they run out of money?"

The young man snatches his hand away from the column as if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't. "No. The project wants to preserve the Victorian elements rather than serve up some sort of pastiche of what modern architects think the public wants. They think this is more authentic, and I am inclined to agree. There is an older history, too. Back in the 1690s, this place was five separate houses, the largest of which was an alehouse called The Mahogany Bar. In 1839, a theatre was added to stage plays, and it became a variety music hall. Unfortunately, it burned down in 1877, leaving just the four walls and these barley twist columns."

The young man makes a fist and uses it to knock the column. "Good cast iron; gilded. Well, I say that, but it isn't really. Just gold coloured paint. By then, the East End venues were for the working class, not the wealthy patrons of the Wigmore."

The fact that the whole info-dump has been given at breakneck speed without once making eye-contact makes Victor smile, before the reason why hits him with another stab. When he can find his voice again, he says quietly, "Thanks for that, wasn't expecting such a thorough answer. I'm Victor."

The young man nods but doesn't look at him. "I'm Peter Fergus. An architect."

"Is that why you are interested in the building?"

"There've been five attempts to get it restored. It was a Methodist mission for almost fifty years, then the GLC bought it but let it sit empty and unloved for decades. It took until 2004 before it could re-open properly as a public venue."

"Did you work on the restoration then?"

Peter shakes his head. "No…" 

"Then, why are you here?"

"Same reason you are, I hope. To give thanks to a man I didn’t thank enough when he was alive. In my case, Mister Holmes found me when no one else could. And he gave me back my mother, in a way that respected me and who I am. I'd never met someone before who understood why I had done what I did, but he did. He told me that he was seventeen when he'd been homeless in London. He didn't judge me for my decisions, and I am glad he gave me a choice. I never told him that. I wish I had."*

Victor decides to take a chance; perhaps this person knows whether Watson is coming. "Did you ever meet John Watson? Did he work with Sherlock on your case?"

Fergus shakes his head. "No. I'm glad. I don't think he'd have understood me the way Holmes did."

"So, you don't know if he is coming or not?"

"No, sorry."

Victor nods and moves on, wondering how he will keep his disappointment in check if Watson doesn't show. Of course, he could try to corner him at Baker Street, but the whole world must be beating a path to that particular door right now, and he has no reason to believe that he'd be admitted. He's never been able to find an address for the London residence of Mycroft, and he doubts whether he'd be allowed anywhere near Parham. Has this trip to London been a daft idea, something destined to be a wild goose chase?

At the back of the room, the chairs around the tables are filled with people talking to one another. Others stand around, listening. Victor joins the crowd around one, where a speaker is just starting. Well-dressed in a suit that Victor recognises as tailor-made, the man introduces himself. "I'm Michael Shaunnesey, and I work at the London Metal Exchange. Sherlock Holmes was a genius, and I'm not saying that because he listened to me at a time when no one else would. He understood the significance of rhodium and how the price data I gave him showed clear signs of market manipulation. No one else did; I'd been turned away by my own firm's compliance department. _Don't rock the boat,_ I was told." He laughs, "Funny that, now I know that a boat was involved in the scam. No regulator was willing to investigate; they all seemed to think I was some sort of crackpot. I took the data to him, and within a couple of minutes, he'd figured it out—someone was moving half a ton of the metal into London, by a private Russian superyacht. I'd never have thought of that; we traders just move contracts, never the hard stuff. He knew it just by looking at the price movements. He and Watson set up a sting operation that caught the smugglers. It was fucking brilliant! And it salvaged my career, I can tell you."*

Victor moves onto the next table, where another story is being told; this time by a slim Pakistani woman who is very shy, keeping her eyes down on the table. Quietly, but with determination, she tells her story in memory of her sister and niece, both victims of an honour killing by the husband, for no reason. "Amina and Zani were innocent; if Mister Holmes had not found their bodies, then the DNA would never have been used to identify them and to show her innocence. He gave our family the chance to bury them, to respect them, to remember them."*

And then onto another table, and then another. Every story is different; the details are sometimes frightening—murder, mayhem, disaster—and Sherlock's role had been only to solve the case. But to those recounting their sad stories, there is a sense of closure, too; that he had given them the gift of justice done to the perpetrators of these crimes.

Finally, Victor walks to the side of the room and turns away from the noise, suddenly overcome by emotion. Particularly bitter pills to swallow down are his grief and anger, laced with a hefty dose of shame. He realises quite clearly now what an idiot he'd been back when he'd last seen Sherlock, dismissing his detective work as pale in comparison to working with Victor on the next big thing in agro-chemistry. Victor now regrets not acknowledging this that last weekend—_you do this_ _because only you can_. Perhaps if he had, then that weekend wouldn't have ended the way it did. Victor had been so self-centred, so sure that he could reignite the personal chemistry that had bound them together back in Cambridge. '_Come with me back to California; it'll be a fresh start._' He'd underestimated Sherlock. He was no longer a callow youth, naïve and a bit tentative in his willingness to trust Victor to know what was best for both of them. Claiming that Sherlock had nothing to keep him in London except for a man who seemed unwilling to love him had been misguided.

_I am such a fool_.

When Victor turns around to look at the people in the room, Victor bears witness to Sherlock's gift, his generosity. No lab work, no new genetic formulae would have ever affected people in the same way as his casework clearly has. Even if the problem of the case was what drew Sherlock's attention in the first place, Victor knows he was far too observant a man not to have been aware of the consequences of his work for the people who were victims and survivors of the crimes he solved.

_He cared about people, more than was safe for him to admit._

In his head, Victor hears that dismissive sniff followed by _sentiment_, said in the baritone he misses so much. Knowing what he knows now, Victor should have thrown everything else away—the company, the money, the West Coast lifestyle. He should have stayed in London and been there when Sherlock needed him, done whatever it would have taken to stop the trajectory that ended in his suicide.

Filled with self-loathing, Victor wants—_needs_—to find someone else to shoulder a bit of the blame. _Where's Mycroft? The sarcastic, controlling and manipulative bastard should be here to face the music. Isn't he willing to confront the consequences of his failure to intervene when it was really justified? He should be here, too_. Victor keeps scanning the people in the room. _Surely John will come? How could he possibly turn away from this living testament to Sherlock's genius? _

Victor prowls the room in frustration, walking forward to take a closer look at the stage. When he looks back at the balcony at the far end of the room, he realises that this must be accessed from those central stairs in the foyer. At the left of the stage where he is standing, there is another set of stairs to the balcony. Perhaps if he positions himself up there, he will be able to see if Watson and Mycroft are here, or spot them when they do make an entrance.

He's halfway along when he notices two women coming into the room downstairs. One is young with her straight, brown hair in a ponytail that does her narrow, pinched facial features no favours, and she is accompanying an elderly one wearing a mourner's black dress. Arm in arm, they are surveying the crowd, making Victor wonder what their stories about Sherlock might be.

In his peripheral vision, Victor now sees two figures entering from the central stairs at the back of the hall. They soon arrive at the balcony's edge. Turning towards them, he realises that one of those men is John Watson. While his companion is clearly not Mycroft, Victor has a vague sense the person is familiar, even though all he can see is the man's back. Without another conscious thought, he is in motion toward them, every step bringing him closer to the man he blames the most for Sherlock's death. By the time he is only ten feet away, he can't stop himself.

"You and I need a word, John Watson. In private."

Victor makes no effort to disguise the venom of his anger, which is clear enough that it provokes the man standing in front of the doctor to turn around in surprise. Victor recognises the Detective Inspector named Lestrade, not just from the time he'd seen him on the dance floor at the Chill nightclub but because the newspaper coverage of Sherlock's suicide had featured photos of the Met DI who had been hoodwinked into believing the man the headlines called '_The Fake Detective_'.

Lestrade steps between Victor and John, making a protective gesture. "Not here. Whatever you might think you want to say to John, now is not the time or place. We're here to celebrate the life of Sherlock Holmes, and you either fit in with that or make yourself scarce, Mister Trevor."

He gestures to the people milling around the floor below the balcony, where Victor had found Watson hiding. "Every one of these people has come here to pay tribute to the man who helped them. If he helped you, then go downstairs and sign the book of condolences. Or post something on the Facebook page. Otherwise, especially if you came here looking for a fight, _leave_."

"No. This is nothing to do with you, Detective Inspector. But I will talk to Doctor Watson, given he's refused to answer my telephone calls, emails and letters." Victor is big enough to use his size to intimidate most people, but the silver-haired man is unmoved.

Victor peers over the man's shoulders at the small figure behind him. John Watson is a diminished man. He'd never thought of the doctor as someone with a significant stature; his ordinariness seemed incongruous when he'd first seen him. After realising Sherlock's infatuation with the man, he'd tried to be generous in his initial reactions.

_No more_. The past months have clearly taken a toll on Watson. He's lost weight, is ashen-faced, eyes red-rimmed.

His eyes connect with Victor's, and he starts shaking his head. "I can't do this. I'm going home, Greg." He starts to turn back to the stairs.

"You can't run away from me, Watson. Here or at Baker Street—you choose, but I am not going away until you give me your explanation. You owe Sherlock that much. You owe _me_ that much."

That makes Watson stop, but not turn around. "Do I? Why?"

"Because you're not the only one who's lost him. At least you've had some answers. For the love you know I had for Sherlock, the _least_ you can do is talk to me because apparently, no one else will. Neither you nor his brother will return my calls, answer my emails, respond to letters. What does it take to get through to you?"

Turning around to face him, Watson licks his chapped lips. "He ended things between you. I think that's where your being entitled to anything stopped." In his eyes, a flicker of resistance sparks and then retreats before he averts his eyes from Victor.

The policeman tries to interfere again, stepping between him and Watson. "Leave him be."

Victor ignores him, talking over his shoulder to John. "You and Mycroft. All I want is to know what happened, to hear it from you two."

Lestrade is shaking his head. "Mister Holmes is not attending today."

"What a bastard!" Victor curses. "Why am I not surprised?"

John's turned away again, but Victor sees him draw a breath, look up at the ceiling and mutter "You and me both… Mycroft didn't even speak to me at the funeral."

The words burn a hole in Victor's control. "_AT LEAST YOU GOT TO GO TO THE FUNERAL!"_ As soon as he shouts the words out, the dam breaks. He struggles, his shoulders start to shake, and he can't catch his breath. "I'm _begging_ you. Just talk to me, please…"

Victor can hardly get the words out because he's crying, but he knows he has to say it. "Damn you, John Watson. What did your refusal to talk cost Sherlock? How much more do you want on your conscience?"

John turns around. "Not here. Baker Street."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wilton Music Hall is an extraordinary venue. Find it online and read its history and view the photos.  
*This parade of people whom Sherlock helped is drawn from the pages of my other stories, with the exception of the Geeks and their comic book who featured in TSoT broadcast episode. Mrs Forrester is the case Sherlock solved in Magpie: Two for Joy, chapter 3. Peter Fergus' case is solved by Sherlock in the Periodic Tales story called Berkelium. Angel was saved by Sherlock in the Periodic Tales story Calcium, Part Two, and returned the favour in Collateral Damage, when she alerted Raz following Sherlock's escape from Moran. Amina and her young daughter Zani Ranchod were the victims of an honour killing uncovered by Sherlock in Painful Truths, one of the Got My Eye On You stories.
> 
> I'm also going to stop here to make a special mention of my beloved beta, @JBaillier, without whom Viclock would never have happened. Her angsty fingerprints are all over this chapter in particular, making sure that every ounce of Victor's pain is extracted.


	5. Chapter 5

"221 Baker Street."

After giving the address, not another word is said in the car Victor had summoned to pick them up on Wellclose Square. He is still struggling with his emotions; can't even look at the front passenger seat where John Watson sits, eyes front, ignoring him. It's just as well, because Victor doesn't think he could bear to be next to the man right now. Anger over Watson's vacant refusal to see him, to speak with him, to give him anything by way of an explanation still burns, unpredictable and raw.

Blurted out on the balcony, Victor's barely veiled threat of self-harm has surprised its utterer most of all. However dark his thoughts have been over the weeks and months had been before now, he's not given voice until now to such impulses. How much of it had been a histrionic gesture, a barbed taunt he'd hoped to prove cruel enough to stab through that veneer of impenetrability that Watson is wearing like some sort of body armour? Or is it the first truly honest statement of how lost in grief he is, unable to see a way out?

As the car pulls away, some of the heat and rage that has driven Victor for so long begins cycling back into the cold, empty despair that had torn him apart when he'd first heard of Sherlock's suicide.

Victor is _cold. _He'd been soaked to the skin by the pouring rain outside the concert hall. So had Watson; neither man had had an umbrella and the rain coming down in stair rods had been brutal in its assault. They'd walked, heads down, going east on Graces Alley in the opposite direction from a collection of media being held at bay by a police tape. Flash guns had gone off, but at a distance that makes him think it had been more reflex than recognition of Watson. They wouldn't have bothered taking photos of Victor. N_obody knows who I am, who I was to him_. Luckily, the rain had been coming down so hard that none of the waiting press seemed interested in pursuit; they quickly hunkered back under their umbrellas.

Now in the car, both men seem too stubborn and distracted to ask the driver to crank up the heat. Victor shivers in silence as he looks out the passenger window at the rain-slicked streets of London. The sight offers no comfort, only the stabbing reminder of what he has lost. He's forgotten how dismal and grey the place can look. Only after he'd moved to California had he realised how profound an effect the long, bleak Southern England winters had on his mood after Sherlock had exited his life. This has never felt like Victor's ancestral land, not really; not in the way it always seemed to be written into Sherlock's and his brother's DNA.

Unknowingly yet unbelievably cruelly, the driver has chosen this particular route from Whitechapel. As they cross the busy intersection at Bank, Victor is confronted by the sight of the peculiar pink and white striped building, Number One Poultry. He does not appreciate being reminded of his twenty-first birthday dinner there. It had been Simon who'd chosen the venue, the Coq d'Argent restaurant. The man Victor had thought of as his cousin — who in fact turned out to be a half-brother — is dead; he'd taken his own life a decade ago when the crimes he'd committed as a banker caught up with him in the Far East. Jack Trevor, Peter Spencer and his son Simon.

_All dead men now, and I am the only one left behind for them to haunt._ Will Sherlock join that cavalcade of spectres on his conscience? Victor is quite certain he already has.

The driver's route takes them up Fleet Street, and Victor closes his eyes, trying to miss The Olde Bell tavern. Too late… even with his eyes closed he can't block the memory of _that_ look in Sherlock's eyes, captured in the photograph he'd taken of the boy he loved. Victor pulls in his bottom lip, crushing his teeth against it to stop himself from letting his emotions spill out onto his face. By the time Fleet Street becomes the Strand, he has lowered his head into his hands, hiding from the sight of Charing Cross train station and the memories of what miracles had happened under its arches in a place called Heaven. After he'd got the news of Sherlock's death, somehow all the memories seemed to sharpen in the pain they caused. He'd said it there, for the first time—"I love you."

_'How is that even possible?'_ Sherlock had asked him incredulously, words barely audible over the pounding music on the main dance floor. How was it possible that someone would love him? Someone whose love he did want once, quite desperately? That disbelief over his luck of finding someone to share his life with had seemed to linger with Sherlock as time passed, burrow deep until it eventually ripped gaping holes into his brittle confidence. In the end he'd acted as though none of it was even real, as though he'd been tricked, misled, that Victor was never going to come home to him.

_Once, you gave me a chance. But only the one. _That one time, Victor knew that Sherlock had chosen not to hide behind his disappointing and hurtful past when it came to other people and sex. Briefly, he'd trusted what he felt between them._ '__Maybe… I think it could be different… if it's with you,'_ Sherlock had told him, and it had sounded like a shameful admission that he did want this thing, that he wasn't above feeling in need, that he did love and want Victor. Their early days together had been a closeness, an intimacy so special that Victor has spent the rest of his life rejecting other people because they could not possibly match that connection.

Drawing a shaky breath, Victor knows he must stop this cycle of regret and grief before it drives him into doing something—anything—to make it stop. Fixating on the back of John Watson's head, Victor resorts to anger. Why had John been so useless? Why hadn't he stopped Sherlock from killing himself? Why hadn't Sherlock _made_ John recognise his love? Had he finally given up, afterwaiting in vain for John, too afraid ever to take initiative, too far in love to let go?

_When we'd finally been re-united for that final weekend, I tried to fix it, tried to remind you what we had, what you could have again, but you wouldn't let me_. A part of Victor understands that sometimes too much happens in between, too much time passes, people get so set in their ways that they let go of hope. He never had, but he could see that Sherlock's heart had moved on — to someone who may just have been a safe target. Perhaps Sherlock felt it was safe to love John, because if he said or did nothing, he knew he would never be faced with rejection. John had claimed never to see the Sherlock that Victor had known and loved.

Victor had tried to make John see, to understand, but had failed. John was never going to accept that gift of Sherlock's heart, not even ripped raw and bloody from Sherlock's chest and thrumming its last beat. He wants to hate John for this, but is beginning to realise that both he and John have something in common—they both failed a man who had loved them.

Only after the car reaches Regent Street can Victor bear to open his eyes. This part of London holds no memories for him about Sherlock. Able to sit up, he sees that Watson's head is bowed; he's no longer looking through the windscreen. Perhaps this part of London is haunted for the doctor, instead. Does it give Victor a twinge of vengeful pleasure at that thought? Yes, it does.

As the car turns onto Baker Street, there is another cluster of open umbrellas covering people on the pavement outside what Victor assumes is the front door of the flat. _The journalists denied entry to Wilton Hall must have congregated here_, he realises.

"Don't they ever give up?" he mutters in the back seat.

Surprisingly, Watson answers, "No. They don't. Don't say a word; don't look them in the eye."

Turning to the driver, the doctor issues instructions that are delivered in a tone carrying more than a hint of military command: "Don't get out. Once we've left the car, leave immediately. Go around the corner. If you have to park, do it some distance away. Don't let them follow you; drive off if you have to. And _don't_ answer any questions."

The car has barely come to a halt by the kerb before Watson is in motion. The knot of people on the step surges towards the car. An explosion of camera flashes is accompanied by a barrage of braying questions shouted at them. In what looks like a well-practiced drill John strides forward, a neutral expression on his face, using his shoulders to push his way through the crowd towards the door. He unlocks it and steps inside; Victor has to hurry to keep up with him before the door is slammed hard enough to make the knocker bang behind them. No one seemed to have been looking at him; perhaps they thought he was a bodyguard or someone else here on official business. The thought feels odd because he's hardly here to protect John. Far from it — what he really wants to do is tear down the man's walls and get at the answers to the questions that have been ripping him apart for weeks.

John has thrown off his water-logged jacket onto a peg and is already halfway up the stairs, while Victor is still wrestling out of his soaked sweater. He stops to look briefly around the hall for somewhere to put it, before deciding to let it join John's black parka on the coat hooks. His eyes adjusting to the darkness, he takes in the décor of the ground floor; it feels dated and a bit tired, the wooden steps scuffed and worn, paint peeling. As he takes to the stairs, half-way up his eye is caught by a small rip in the ridged wallpaper; he's tempted to put a finger out to touch it, wondering what the story behind it might be. This is not one of those impersonal, glitzy places built by businesspeople who prefer to be lavish their money; no, the building seems permeated by the history of its occupants and London's past. A fitting home for a man who, even at a very young age, had probably been able to deduce its history from evidence like a torn edge of wallpaper, able to be privy to all its secrets.

oOoOoOo

When he reaches what he assumes is the flat's living room, Victor watches Watson head straight for the kitchen to busy himself in the process of making tea. With his back turned to Victor, John stares at the one mug he's put on the counter-top while the kettle starts to boil before reluctantly taking a second mug down. Victor notices that the first candidate is rejected, pushed aside; one from the back is brought forward. _Was it Sherlock's usual one?_

The harsh light of the fluorescent tube lamp above the kitchen table and the domestic sounds of the tea-making dispel some of the gloom in the quiet flat. Victor shrugs off his crumpled soggy shirt and drapes it over one of the chairs by the desk between the windows; it, too, has been soaked in the rain and is making him cold. Now clad only in a white, short-sleeved T-shirt, he drops into a chair and looks around the room. There is a standing angle-poise lamp behind the chair, which he switches on to bring some more warmth and light into the space. While Watson takes his time in the kitchen, Victor has time to silently take in the clutter and all the odd things scattered about. There's a beetle collection, a bat pinioned in a frame, a Chinese-looking statue of a cat with a wavy arm. From the bison head on the wall to the spray-painted smiley face on the flocked wallpaper— every item whispers of a story. _These things mattered to Sherlock_. _These things _are_ Sherlock, still._

Watson walks over and plonks the mug of tea on the little Indian table beside the chair. Victor picks up the mug and wraps his hands around it, grateful for the warmth of it as he continues his survey of the room. A modern print of a leering skull is on the wall behind the sofa. Book cases half-filled, piles of magazines and papers, a printer on a small table. The desk between the windows is full of printed papers and notes as is the window sill behind him with a block of rosin acting as a paperweight there. Books are everywhere—on shelves, table surfaces, windowsills—jumbled up, skew-whiff, in any old order and orientation.

There had always been a profound contrast between the analytical meticulousness of Sherlock's chemistry work and the artistic mess he had tended to make of their flat in Cambridge

"It's… so him. All of it." Victor acknowledges with a slightly incredulous laugh twisted into a mockery of itself by the pain.

"Yeah. Not a whole lot of me in here. It was always all about Sherlock." Watson's tone is an odd mongrel of anger, bitterness, fondness and nostalgia. There's a reverence to the way he says the name that brings on an acute pang of jealousy in Victor.

_Jealous of what? Over someone who's gone, now? Are we still doing this?_

Victor forces himself to look at Watson, to school his gaze to conceal the tumult within. John has sat in an upholstered chair, some sort of Victorian style that seems more at home with the décor than the Corbusier chair Victor is in. Watson's eyes look dull, almost vacant and that annoys Victor, so he looks away. _You don't get to mourn for him like that, not yet. Not until I know you should even have that right._

Aware that he hasn't regained his composure enough to start talking yet, Victor continues feasting his eyes on all the sights and the smells of Sherlock's old books. Some of them are familiar from their cohabitation in Cambridge; when they appeared at Saxon Street, they introduced that slightly foxy aroma of pages and bindings that are old and slightly mouldy.

Almost to himself, Victor mutters, "Never wanted to put his books in order; '_two fingers to the idiot who claimed I was OCD'_, he said. He could always put his hand on the book he needed, remembering exactly where he'd put it."

John hums in confirmation. "Never could get him to keep his chemistry clutter off the kitchen table."

Victor shifts in his seat to look in that direction, and spots two cardboard boxes on the floor, what appears to be a microscope peering out of the larger one. He wonders if John has tried to pack things away but lacked the heart to finish the job, or if it's someone else's doing. He takes a cautious sip of the scalding, over-stewed tea, welcoming the feel of the heat going down his throat. The bitterness suits his mood. His eye eventually falls on the music stand, and the sight makes his eyes prickle, forcing him to look away.

John must be watching him, because he says, "Thanks for giving me the excuse to leave early. I didn't want to be there when that musician started."

Victor agrees but chooses not to say so. He'd always liked violin music before Sherlock died; it had made him feel connected to all the good memories even during their years apart. Now it is too painful a reminder, and he'd been planning to make his escape before the concert, if neither Watson or Mycroft had showed.

Finally, Victor's visual survey of the room lands on the mantelpiece. "Oh, Billy. I remember her."

"Billy?"

Surprised that Watson doesn't know about the skull, Victor explains, "The skull—he's had her for ages, said it was a gift from his chemistry master at Harrow. Called it his alter ego, named it Billy before he'd done the research to deduce that it was likely to be a female. He told me that he refused to change the name. It could stand for _Wilhelmina_, he said."

The fact that he knows something about Sherlock that Watson doesn't know feels ridiculously good, too good to resist rubbing it in a bit more. Victor points to a framed painting. "And Uncle Rudy's portrait. He had it in Cambridge, put it on the wall of our living room. Has he ever told you about him? The guy was a cross-dresser."

Watson turns in surprise to the painting on the wall beside his chair, as if seeing it for the first time. "No. He didn’t say. I guess it wasn't important."

There is something rather blasé in the answer that angers Victor. "Clearly, there's plenty he never told you about himself. Maybe that's because he didn't trust you."

Watson shrugs. "He never talked about the past. _That was then; this is now_, he said. He never talked about _you_. Not even after your weekend together. What does that say about how important he thought the past was?"

There is a direct challenge in that statement that rekindles the flames of Victor's anger. The doctor's dig incinerates the fragile truce that had stayed his wrath.

Putting down the mug, Victor asks "Did you do what I asked you to do? Were you willing to be the man he needed you to be?"

"Obviously not. Maybe he'd still be here if I had been."

The regret that is conveyed in such a simple statement makes Victor hesitate.

Watson continues without Victor needing to prompt. "I didn't spot the signs of depression, had no idea he was having suicidal thoughts. I should have seen it. I'm a doctor; I'm supposed to be able to do that for people. Even people I don't know, patients. I thought I knew him, but I didn't see it. He guards himself so…" Watson puts down his mug, leaning back in the chair and lifting his eyes to the ceiling. "GuardED. Past tense. Hindsight… yeah, he was under a hell of a lot of pressure for weeks, months, but somehow, I didn't see it that way, not at the time, because he never faltered. He _liked _it, that… deduction thing of his being tested, trying to get ahead of Moriarty," Watson accuses. "_The Game is On,_" he adds scornfully.

Victor remembers the phrase from one of Watson's blog posts, as it if had been Sherlock's motto.

John draws breath, letting it out slowly before continuing. "If I'd been a better friend, a better person, maybe things would have been different. Whatever made him choose to kill himself, he never confided in me. I overestimated what he could endure, and maybe you're right; he didn't trust me, or for whatever other reason, didn't feel like he could come to me for help."

The eyes that look down from the ceiling to face Victor's once again are haunted. Victor's anger, the ache of rage he's been carrying around for weeks, dissipates, blown into dust by his realisation that he is not the only one in the room who is suffering from a toxic blend of guilt, regret and loss. The motes of it swirl in the air between them and things that could be said, maybe even _should_ be said—can't be voiced by Victor now.

Instead, weakly, he falls back on a conventional question. "Why not?"

A slightly quizzical expression flits across Watson' s face. "You think I haven't asked myself that question? You think I haven't spent every bloody night tossing and turning, re-running every conversation I've ever had with him in my head, asking myself what I should have said, what I shouldn't have said, what I could have done differently? You don't think I've done that? I've spent days, weeks, months having a shouting match in my head with the man who should be sitting right there instead of you. I _don't know_ why he didn't trust me. I'm not Sherlock Holmes. I can't deduce the answer, nor can you, and Mycroft doesn't seem to know it, either."

Watson's tone is bitter as he refers to the older Holmes. Judging by Victor's own encounters with the elder Holmes, he wouldn't be surprised if John Watson had been subjected to an even more intense scrutiny than he had when he'd first met Sherlock. What had Mycroft seen between the two of them? Had he treated John like he had Victor—as an instant threat to the flimsily woven fabric of Sherlock's stability? As much as Victor wants to reject the notion, he and John do have some things in common. Victor's own insomnia, his endless loop of questions, the anger and grief—they are mirrored in the face sitting across from him.

Victor shifts uncomfortably in the chair under Watson's oddly disapproving gaze, suddenly realising that he must be in Sherlock's seat. He's an intruder in what is a flat-shaped epitaph for the life John had shared with Sherlock, and all he can manage is, "You did love him, then?"

Watson rolls his eyes in disbelief, then snaps, "What I felt… still feel… it's none of your fucking business. You said he loved me. I never saw it. He didn't need me. He didn't think twice about facing Moriarty on his own. Sent me away on a fool's errand, lied…" Watson closes his eyes and shakes his head. "God, how he lied."

"You don't actually _believe_ what the papers said; he's not a fraud, John."

"That's not what I meant. I believed in him." There's a tiny snort that carries no amusement, just pain. "Still do. He wasn't a fraud. Moriarty was real, too. I suppose he was more real to Sherlock, meant more to him, than I did, saw the two of them as equals. I was just his friend, somewhere off in peripheral orbit. I couldn't stop him."

Watson shifts his eyes to lock onto Victor's. "Nobody could. He didn't reach out to you, either. Maybe he didn't love _you_ as much as you seemed to think he did. Maybe he didn’t know how to love anyone, least of all himself. Neither you nor I mattered in that equation he thought he solved by convincing himself to jump. It's not something you or I can change, now, is it? I just… I just wish I knew what the decisive moment was, when things could have still gone a different way, and sometimes I think it might have been long before I ever met him," he says. "Maybe he couldn't trust anyone after what you did."

Victor is appalled. It's as though John is trying to divert all the blame from himself to the closest convenient whipping boy.

John sits up and leans forward, his chin rising and accusatory anger having reached his eyes, he addresses Victor again. "You think you're the only one who cared about him? Well, I assume you saw that queue a mile long of people who are grateful for him, who miss him, and I'm the first one in that line. You knew him once; so what? I wasn't there for him because he wouldn't let me. You weren't there for him because he sent you packing."

The small man throws himself back in the chair with a strange half-smile that holds not the slightest trace of mirth in it. "I shouldn't be surprised that you've come here ready to tear me apart for not stopping him from jumping off that fucking roof, right in front of me. You can have your delusions, thinking you know what me and Sherlock had, what his life was like. Go ahead, shout at me for not answering your calls or emails as though I owed you something. I think it's Sherlock who owes a lot of people an explanation, not me. Sorry for not answering you, and I was sort of buried under a truck-load of shit dumped on my head by all sorts of people."

John throws his hands up in mock surrender. " _Mea culpa_ . Yes, I should have saved you the trip. Nothing you say or think is anything that I haven't thought about myself already. Don't waste your breath. He didn't give a damn what I felt."

"You're angry with him," Victor states plainly. It's logical, but somehow the intensity of it coming from John is a surprise.

"Damn right I am; thing is, Sherlock never understood how the things he did affected other people."

"That's not… fair. I mean, anyone can make that mistake sometimes when they're in over their heads, depressed and so on." _I made that mistake once; I didn't realise what going to Australia would mean for him._

Watson shrugs in a tense jerk of his hunched shoulders. "This is the best answer I can give to your crazy idea that he loved me: nobody does that to someone they love. They don't do what he–– no, they decide to _live._ He gave me that after I came back from Afghanistan and couldn't see a future. And now, he's gone. So, don't you _dare_ talk to me about how hard it is to go on."

Victor is still reeling from that when John rips into him again. "What do you know about suffering? You get to disappear, get on with your life. In fact, he made sure you had all that, way before this business with Moriarty came to a head. Kicking you to the kerb was clearly a kindness in hindsight, so count yourself lucky. What did I get? I'm stuck here forever. I can't walk down the street. Everyone I know, every friend or colleague and even my God-damned sister, nobody can think of me without remembering what happened to Sherlock. I'm not just me anymore; to other people I'm what he did and all the reasons for it that he never told anyone. You should see what people have posted about me—people I don't know and never will; they all feel entitled to have an opinion about me, about what happened, making judgments about what kind of a friend I must have been. A lot think I am the stupidest man alive, not seeing what was coming, or living and working alongside a complete fraud like some star-struck bloody fan. Some think I must be guilty, too, that I should be put on trial now that they can't get to him. The only thing they know is what they read in the papers. You get to walk away. No one knows about you and Sherlock."

The awfulness of that statement makes Victor's chest constrict and his breath leaves his lungs in a gasped sigh. John is making that anonymity sound both like a gift and an insult. "What am I going to do?"

"How the hell should I know? Do what anyone does in this situation. Miss him. Mourn. At least you get to do it in private. Go back to California, there is nothing for you here."

"What will you do?"

"Leave Baker Street. Sherlock wanted me to stay since he made it possible through his will." John bites his lip hard, breathing heavily for a moment before continuing. "Just proves he really understood fuck all about how this would affect… people, doesn't it? Rent's paid in perpetuity, as long as I want to stay. I don't care. I can't bear it." Watson looks around at the room. "The whole place just… hurts. I've had enough. I'm ready to leave."

Victor knows there is nothing more to say, nothing more to do. The man he had come to London to hate is, in fact, himself. Watson and he are the same, both damaged irreparably by the loss they share. He collects his sodden things and leaves.

oOoOoOOoO

**— Two weeks after Wilton Hall —**

"You need to see this."

Elizabeth hands over a USB and Sherlock slips it into the laptop.

When it opens to reveal a video clip showing a rural landscape, he instantly recognises it. The Dawn Redwood tree was planted by his mother before he was born. It's across the cricket pitch from the house, near the chapel at Parham. Behind it, heading towards the camera is a small digger, driven by a man he can't really see well enough through the windscreen to identify at this distance. The video has sound, so he taps the speaker icon to hear the machine chugging closer to what appears to be a slit trench about a meter in length. The bucket at the front of the digger lowers and two men appear from the sides to manhandle a black stone out of the machine. Dropping it into the trench, one straightens the stone upright while the other man starts packing in hard core and dirt.

He finally realises what is going on, as the camera focuses in on the gold lettering on the black polished stone.

Sitting back, he glares at Elizabeth. "Is this some idea of a joke? Why would I want to see such a farce?"

"Keep watching. These are the edited highlights."

Next, there is time-lapse photography that suggests days and nights passing. Then, coming into view are the backs of two people standing in front of the stone. Mycroft is unmistakable; Sherlock deduces that the woman standing next to him, her arm entwined with his brother's, is Lady Caroline. Neither of them speaks; the recorder has only picked up a bit of birdsong in the background. When they turn to leave, Sherlock sees Lady Caroline's face turn to Mycroft with a worried and pained expression, while his brother's is absolutely stony.

Sherlock uses the touch pad to position the cursor over the pause button, then taps. "He hasn't told her."

From behind him comes Elizabeth's response; "No, not yet. And that means he probably won't. His career depends on being silent, as you stipulated."

"How did you get this footage?"

"Parham's security team set up a camera to avoid vandalism. Even on the estate, there are some people who have bought the press line that you were a fraud. One of the security team used to work for me, so it wasn't hard to get him to share these."

Sherlock presses the play icon again and this time, the edit is more evidently a jump. The screen goes black and then comes back to life.

It's Mrs Hudson. She's wearing purple and stands with her back to the camera for a brief moment, then moves closer to the grave stone to place a bouquet of flowers: yellow lilies and carnations with various bits of greenery. He knows that she would have chosen carefully. Yellow is for remembrance of people who are gone.

He sighs. It all feels unreal, like he's watching a soap opera on the telly. The hospital stay has given him too much opportunity to watch daytime TV; the therapists had agreed it was not too taxing a pastime, and having to process the visual and auditory information would help him to regain his cognitive skills. He'd endured it; he was willing to do anything and everything to shorten the time he is wasting at the clinic.

"What is the point of this sentimentality?" Sherlock demands.

"Keep watching."

The video cuts to black again before resuming. Now, it's John standing next to Mrs Hudson. It is all Sherlock can do to stifle a groan, keeping his annoyance internalised. _This is a waste of time._

This time, amidst the birdsong, there is a one-sided conversation.

"I'll leave you alone to, erm… you know." Martha Hudson turns away from John and walks past where the camera must be hidden. Sherlock can see that she is using a tissue to blow her nose.

"Um…mmm." John is mumbling to himself, but the microphone volume is suddenly turned up. "You–– you told me once that you weren't a hero. Umm… there were times I didn't even think you were _human_, but let me tell you this: you were the best man, and the _most_ _human _human being that I've ever known, and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. And so… there."

Sherlock cannot see John's face but it takes no deductive skill to recognise the sound of John trying to hold himself together. A deep breath is blown out and then he walks up to the gravestone, placing fingertips across the top.

"I was so alone and I owe you so much…" Silence for a couple of moments, and then a resigned, quiet "okay" before John turns and starts to walk away. After only a few strides, he stops and turns back to the headstone. "No, please, there's just one more thing, mate, one more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't… be… _dead_." In a higher pitched, distressed tone, John continues: "Would you do…? Just for me, just _stop it."_ He gestures down to the grave. "_Stop this_."

The figure lowers his head, his ragged breathing caught by the microphone. John lowers his head further, covers his eyes and Sherlock hears the unmistakable sound of weeping. After a moment, John stands at attention, nods and then turns on one heel and marches away.

The sight pulls at Sherlock in ways that confuse him.

On the one hand, for the sake of the plan he is about the execute, he is both worried and relieved that John seems to be considering on some level that Sherlock might not be dead. Perhaps his obscure comment from the rooftop about _'just a magic trick_' has successfully introduced some level of doubt. On the other hand, seeing John upset at the idea of him being permanently gone is… distressing.

Both emotions are then joined by a third. _It wasn't meant to be like this, John._

Anger wins, because it must—because the other warring emotions won't propel him forward, just hold him back. If he hadn't been injured, by now he'd have been halfway through his work taking the network apart. It's unfortunate that the both the time lag and his injuries mean that his chances of survival and success have fallen sharply.

He snaps out the USB from the laptop port and thrusts it back at Elizabeth. "If I hadn't been injured…"

"Would you have told him, then?" Her question is asked mildly, cautiously. "There is still time to change your mind about bringing him into this, about all of it."

Sherlock could imagine himself standing along the tree line bordering the family cemetery. If he'd been fit and able, could he have resisted the temptation to be there? To intervene and relieve John's discomfort? He can see the scene in his head. And then, he knows for certain just how angry John would be at his lies, how he'd shout and then demand that Sherlock stop what he was doing. Or worse, demand that he come with Sherlock to take on Moriarty's web.

The injury and the extended recovery period have created a useful distance. He knows, now, that he can never afford the luxury of telling John, not until his monumental task is finished or, more likely, he's been killed in the attempt to make this right.

With his Norwegian accent intact, he answers her; "Sherlock Holmes is dead. John Watson can get on with his life, now. Keep him safe. Don't let him find out about Lars."

She takes the USB from him and returns it to her pocket. "Shall I keep this?"

"No. Destroy it."

The Norwegian has no time for sentimentality. No ties, no worries about what he's left behind. John is safer that way.

"Goodbye, Elizabeth." He snaps the lid of his laptop closed, heaves himself to his feet and walks away.

As he leaves the room, he makes sure that his limp is far less evident than it was the last time she saw him.

oOoOoOoOo

**— Five weeks later —**

"You're not ready to leave."

"I'm as ready as I have to be."

He makes his pronouncement in a tense voice, with the slight lengthening of the double-O in the word as well as a bit of an inflection up at the end of the last syllable. The almost musical cadence of the sentence is what marks it the most; this is flawless Norwegian-accented English. It comes from a mouth whose lips are a bit more rigid, the jaw held a little higher than what might be expected. He constricts his vocal cords enough to raise the pitch from his once natural baritone into a tenor.

His therapy for expressive aphasia has played into his hands, helping him to change his speech beyond all recognition. It deepens the disguise, the transformation. The PT has helped him change his posture, his gait. The slight limp adds a stroke of realism. He has shed the skin of who he once was. _Sherlock Holmes is dead; long live Lars Sigurson._

"No more delays," he announces, his back turned to the doctor who only knows him by his alias.

It's taken entirely too long. Way too long. The delay has jeopardised everything he'd been planning for months. If he'd been able to move in the immediate aftermath of Moriarty's death, then he might have succeeded with Plan A—taking over the consulting criminal's network from the inside, as Lars Sigurson.

He sighs. It has taken weeks, _months_ even to remember all that Plan A had involved. The brain fog had obscured the entrance to the Moriarty Annex of his Mind Palace. When he'd finally unlocked the doors and regained access to that data, it was too late. The power vacuum had formed and the network fragmented. Once allowed access to a laptop, he'd discovered that so many of the leads he had have vanished, the cells of his operatives have dug themselves deeper holes, the fallen angels disappearing into the shadows as Moriarty is no longer able to pressure them into supporting his efforts. Plan A is no longer possible; as a result, he's going to have to improvise, to make it up as he goes along.

This critical delay at the start will exponentially delay his return. He'd once hoped to be back in London, job done, by Christmas. Back at Baker Street, back to John with an explanation and the hope of forgiveness. What should have taken mere months, perhaps the summer and a part of the autumn, is going to take a lot longer.

It doesn't matter, now. The chances of him succeeding and surviving have dropped significantly. At least now John will have ample time to give up any half-baked ideas about magic tricks and miracles, time to accept that the man he knew as Sherlock Holmes is dead.

It's better that way, for all concerned.

Lars leans over the desk and signs the self-release forms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The graveside scene is one of the more awkward plot holes in the Mofftiss script of The Reichenbach Fall episode. No matter what planning had been done in advance, a stone takes weeks to organise. Is it weird that I know this? Blame my village cemetery for that piece of trivia. The scene where Sherlock is lurking in the cemetery and watches John's parting speech at the graveside is odd, to say the least. The idea of Sherlock standing there, undisguised, wearing his Belstaff, is frankly ludicrous if he intends to fake his death in order to destroy Moriarty's network. So, this is my fix….  
Oh, and my beloved beta, @JBaillier's lovely fingerprints are all over this chapter- a psalm of angsty Viclock.


	6. Plus One

"I need the loo."

The driver delivering him to the front door of the terminal building of RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk uses the rear-view mirror to exchange glances with the man sitting to Sherlock's right. When a brief nod is given, the driver uses his hands-free device to mutter something to a third party on the phone.

The fact that the MI6 agent on the back seat is handcuffed to Sherlock creates some inconvenience when they both have to exit the car and make their way into the terminal building and then into the gents. He resents yet another irritant in an already stressful situation. The awkwardness of the forced connection affects his balance, still easily thrown off kilter, so much so that it emphasises the slight limp. The bone may have healed, but soft tissue takes longer. The chain connecting the two hand-cuffed men is barely long enough to allow Sherlock to unzip and do the honours at the urinal without making a mess of the process.

After he is taken to the basin to wash his hands and splash a bit of water on his face, he looks in the mirror. Reflected back is Lars Sigurson; short brownish blond hair, a reddish beard and moustache, neatly trimmed. They say that recovering from an acute injury adds years to one's face, and he can see the truth of that—two lines across his forehead, a slight bagging around his eyelids. The image is a little blurry; focusing his gaze is still slow as a side-effect of the head injury which he hopes will disappear over time. Squinting a bit to see the reflection more clearly, a stray thought crosses his mind that has not occurred to him before now: the colour he's chosen for his hair is exactly the same as Victor's. The scowl that forms at that thought is reflected back at him. When he slips his wire-framed glasses back on, the reflection sharpens in focus enough that he can see how the tint in the lenses moderate his eye colour into a muddy, angry grey. Oddly that, too reminds him of Victor, on that last Sunday he'd seen him.

He shakes his head in annoyance at the intrusive thought, then instantly regrets the movement: a wave of vertigo makes his stomach heave in sympathy. The doctors lectured him _ad nauseam_ about not trying to force a recovery from his TBI because it wouldn't work. Headaches, dizziness, balance problems, memory issues—the catalogue has become as familiar to him in practice as their textbook comments had been about the pathophysiology of neural damage. He's learned how to disguise most of the obvious symptoms. The depression combined with anxiety is nothing new, even if it's been years since it was this bad. Lucky for him, they have no medical history with which to compare his current behaviour.

When the doctors had mentioned sleep disturbance as a possible symptom, he'd shrugged. "I've never slept well in my life, so who can say that the fall has made things worse?" He'd demanded the laptop be left in his room, so when he woke up in the night, he could return to work.

The neurologist, Doctor Fitzgerald, had argued: "You are becoming obsessive. That, too, is a symptom; it is common to become fixated on certain thoughts or behaviours after a brain injury. You need to rest, as difficult as it may be."

Sherlock had wanted to give the good doctor a matching injury for his condescension and lectures about altered personality, fewer inhibitions, anger and aggression. None of the staff understand that he welcomes all of it, since it's part of his disguise. All of those traits will suit what he needs to be as Lars. Even if his fatigue is annoying, irritability is actually in character for how he has fashioned his alter ago, so he lets it have free rein, mostly aimed at the doctors trying to stop him from getting on with the work. He'd forced them to taper all of his medications because he knows full well that these will not be available where he's planning to go after four agreed-upon months of CIA hospitality.

The one thing he has not mentioned to any doctor is the lingering PTSD. Flashbacks to events on the roof have actually helped him remember what happened, how it happened and what he has to do next. If the price of it is recurring nightmares that end with a vivid sensation of falling then that, too, is to be expected and accepted. It's not as though he has any options. His vestibular sensory processing has always been wonky; not surprising, then, that the nightmares lead to hypnic jerks that wake him up on the edge of a panic attack.

Looking at his reflection in the mirror again as he dries his hands, he reassures himself that the disguise is complete. The agent to whom he is leashed knows nothing about him beyond a name and that he's a Norwegian national. Only a handful of people in the UK know that he's been arrested for organised crimes against six countries. Oh, and for being a member of James Moriarty's network. Apart from Elizabeth ffoukes, no one has any reason to associate him with the fake detective who took his own life after murdering the D-list actor Richard Brook who had exposed him. The tabloids have had their field day and moved onto other victims.

In the weeks of his recovery, Sherlock has contemplated the significance of his crime. He didn't actually kill Moriarty; the only person who he murdered that day was the man whose name is in his real birth certificate. Is not suicide exactly what the word means — “murder of self”? Hardly as heinous a crime as the crimes he is accused of as Lars Sigurson. Yet, how much better is the suffering person trying to murder himself than the one who murders another? He is taking a life from himself and slaughtering that life. Moriarty committed suicide, and so did Sherlock Holmes, to allow Lars a free hand in the afterlife—_in order to protect the life of John._

Behind him, the door to the gents thumps open, and the click of sharp heels announces the arrival of a female who should have gone to the ladies' loo. Sherlock uses the mirror to confirm it is the person whom he's been expecting—Elizabeth ffoukes.

The agent beside him had stiffened at the sound of the entry, not having Sherlock's deductive capacity. The man's free right hand had moved to draw his concealed weapon. As soon as he recognises his superior, however, he re-holsters his weapon and sets his shoulders back into a parade-rest position.

She smirks. "Stand down, Reynolds. Uncuff yourself and give us the room."

"Ma'am? I have a duty of protection; I shouldn't leave you with him."

Her blue eyes narrow. "You presume I cannot protect myself?"

The agent's cheeks redden. "No, ma'am. Of course not." He takes a key from his pocket and uncuffs himself, holding out the opened device; he gestures for Sherlock to put his free hand into it.

Sherlock rolls his eyes in annoyance but complies, and the cuff is snapped shut.

Nodding as he passes the DG of MI6, Reynolds murmurs, "I'll be outside if you need me, ma'am."

As soon as the door swings shut behind him, Elizabeth steps closer to Sherlock. "I'm sorry. He's just doing his duty." She speaks softly enough to ensure that no one can hear.

Sherlock shrugs away the indignity and stifles his annoyance. "It doesn't matter. All part of the show."

She is looking at him with a forensic scrutiny. "You're sure you're ready? The doctors aren't convinced."

He nods curtly, then adds, "Of course" for effect. He keeps his tone pitched low and assertive but controlled.

"You could wait; I can put the Americans off until you're fully recovered."

"No. Now is _fine._" This time his anger is more evident.

She steps even closer, stopping just beyond the point that Sherlock recognises as being socially acceptable between two people who know each other well but not intimately.

"Last chance. You can call the whole thing off, if you want. We can invent some excuse. With a new identity, we could protect you. If you wanted them to know, we could tell John and Mycroft. Take pity on them, if not yourself."

Sherlock shakes his head and fights the dizziness. Through clenched teeth, but quietly enough to avoid the echo of the tiled room, he says, "But I am in, in so far in blood that sin will pluck on sin. Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye."

She gives him a sad smile. "You are not Richard the Third. And I won't leave you to die alone on a battlefield. All it will take is for you to ask for help, and it will be provided."

He scoffs. "Deniability is key. Where I am going and what I will be doing is none of your business." He makes it as dismissive as possible. He has no time for this sentimentality. _Can't she remember how much time has already been wasted?_

She sighs. "I thought you'd say that. Still, I owe it to your brother to at least try to dissuade you."

"I don't owe him anything, and neither do you. He must know nothing. I am almost certain that there is a spy in the ointment, someone in his service who has been willing to pass on information. So, no news from me to you, lest it reach him and the mole." He glances towards the door. "What have you told the Americans?"

She sniffs. "Extradition; we've had you for six weeks, and you've done a deal. Officially, we've given Sigurson immunity. Moriarty's death is officially suicide and your deal gives you immunity for being a part of his network—in exchange for enough information about its operations here in the UK to satisfy the powers that be. The CIA will let you go in about four months. It's an agreed-upon part of the deal: they get your co-operation to uncover his network in the USA and then they'll let you go."

It sounds as though that co-operation will entail more than just sitting in a jail cell. _Good_. The CIA should find use for his abilities. "And if they don't? If they renege on the deal?"

"Are you honestly telling me that you would have any difficulty getting out of their custody if you wanted to?"

He smirks. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Elizabeth."

She looks up, and locks eyes with him. "It's not the CIA I'm worried about. The rest of the network? Yes, they do worry me. And I meant what I said. Send up a flare anytime you want out; exit guaranteed."

"I only want one thing from you."

She nods. "I know. We'll do our best to keep him safe."

  
oOoOoOo

Winter comes early to Moscow. It is already snowing outside the private hospital, but it is warm inside. Just as well, given the fact that he is going to be here for a minimum of a month, followed by post-operative out-patient treatment for at least another three months.

_No matter_. Ford's reserves of patience are more than sufficient for the long game. When he'd checked into the hospital last night under his alias of Fyodr Knaslovsky, the clock in his head started a new countdown. He has estimated it will take him another three years before he recovers enough and sets in place his plans for the final confrontation. To some, that might seem a long time, but to a man who has been waiting all his life, it merely feels like something almost within his grasp, at last. The anticipation makes his blood burn.

_Eleven hundred days, brother mine. _

Ford switches his phone on and swipes until a very special playlist comes up. He taps the MP3 file sent to him three months ago, even though he knows the lyrics by heart.

_"At last!"_ Vee's breathless voice does not hide her delight. "_I've finally managed to get access to her laptop; squeezed in her office when she had to go to the loo and copied this onto a USB for your enjoyment. I told you last month that Ice Man been recused from the Moriarty plan, but I never expected to find this treasure. She got it from the Spook, who took it off the Idiot's phone."_

Vee's love of code names makes him smile; she's always enjoyed the game. The MP3 she'd attached in June was the audio recording of a showdown on the St Bartholomew's hospital roof where Sherlock and Moriarty had sealed their fates. Ford listens to it at least once a day to remind himself of his progress. _Third time lucky; one down, one to go. _Ford has tried and failed to organise Sherlock's death twice before—then, the idiot was just a feckless teenager. For years after that, Ford had not bothered again, convinced that the little cretin would end up dead at some point from a drugs overdose. It is sweet revenge that his youngest half-brother has finally managed to take his own life in such a spectacularly damaging way. _Oh, how they must all be delightfully beside themselves, mourning for someone who wasn't even fit to be the spare to the heir_.

Last month, Vee had sent a huge file of all the media coverage following the suicide of the Irishman and the leap to his death of Sherlock Holmes. That, too, is Ford's daily pleasure reading. He never tires of dipping into the articles, relishing every morsel of denigration about the detective being exposed as a fraud. He can imagine Mycroft's squirming with distaste at all the publicity. Ford's favourite has to be the salient fact that even the death of Richard Brook is being blamed on Sherlock.

It was remarkably helpful that Sherlock had managed to tie up that particular loose end before killing himself. Enlisting Moriarty to target the younger son had been ridiculously simple, but Ford had always assumed that he'd have to get rid of the Irishman himself before stepping into his shoes. How _convenient_ that his consulting criminal proxy had built a network ripe for a take-over hit. How _serendipitous_ that one of the Holmes offspring has just handed it to him on a silver platter.

His PA taps on the door and enters, knowing better than to expect a vocal answer. He signs to her in RSL, and she replies in Russian: "Novoye pis'mo*." He takes the encrypted USB and shoos her out before plugging it into the laptop. Only he and Vee share the unbreakable code which he applies now. 

_"Hello, chief. Not much to report this month. The Ice man is spending his days mostly licking his wounds; Love has to tell him to leave the room whenever the M case is discussed. The look on his face—like he's been sucking lemons. He and Love are still exchanging meaningful glances at one another. He's heading home for Christmas; already put in for leave. Speaking of which… Should you ever be around Cornwall at the end of December, you know you will be welcome at my home. That's all for now." _

Short and sweet. A bit like Vivian Norbury herself—the nobody who's been invisible and utterly irreplaceable for years. She's been his loyal asset for so long that he knows better than to take her for granted. Ford makes a mental note to send her something special for the holidays this year.

_I'll be home for Christmas…_

Perhaps he will be, in three years' time. The irony of that song lyric popping into his head is not lost on Fitzroy Sherrin Ford. He has no home to speak of; it's a commodity he's never possessed. A bastard born in secret in France, he'd been moved to America to be raised by foster parents with whom he had nothing in common. He's been an expatriate all of his life, moving with ease between cultures, but at home in none.

_Home…_ if it has ever existed as a place in his imagination, it is an Elizabethan country house in Sussex, but he's never stepped foot there. What should have been his rightful patrimony is occupied by another, a usurper. And worse still, until Sherlock had solved his problem for him, there had also been an idiot younger sibling that stood between Ford and his inheritance.

He cannot keep the smile off his face as he reviews the facts of the latest developments in his head. _How incredibly convenient this has all turned out to be_. The smile is reflected in the bullet-proof glass between him and Moscow's snow; it makes him consider the image. With one exception, Ford looks younger than his fifty-one years: wavy dark hair, like his mother's. Cheekbones are hers, too. He has his father's eyes, though: cold, dark and a bit cruel. It had been a distinct pleasure for Ford to engineer his death in a car accident on a hair-pin curve over Lake Geneva. The aristocratic imbecile had spent a wild night with Violet Sherrinford and never learned that he'd spawned a child. _Ignorance is no excuse._

The exception catches his eye in the reflection, and the smile turns back to his customary frown. No amount of feeding himself back up, of rebuilding muscle and fitness since his incarceration, can change the thing that he normally covers up with a scarf. He draws a deep breath in the only way left to him—through the tracheostoma. His mouth and throat are now attached only to his oesophagus and thence to his stomach through an unnatural diversion made necessary by the complete removal of his larynx. Breathing through the hole in his throat is a constant reminder of his punishment for treason, along with his whole-life sentence. In prison, he'd been denied any device or therapy that would have given him the means to communicate. No paper, no computer, no pen or pencil. Silenced. _But not for much longer_.

After two long years, he's finally managed to assemble the right surgical team, which has taken no little amount of preparation. The pressure, blackmail, coercion and threats, not to mention an obscene amount of bribery and corruption—all needed, if he is ever to get his voice back. This will be no simple operation; it will take nine surgeons over eighteen hours.

It has taken some hard thinking, too. Is his voice more important than the years he might be wiping off his life? Medical specialists have all argued against what he has in mind: "Not a life-threatening loss, the larynx; it's an organ you can do without," said one he'd considered. After the online chat discussion while the man was in London for a medical congress, Ford had ensured that the otorhinolaryngologist met with a nasty assault on his way back to San Diego. The doctor had lost his tongue as the victim of a vicious knife attack in New York's JFK airport while transferring to a domestic flight.

_See how YOU get on without a tongue,_ had been Ford's original impulse, but he'd then decided it was simpler just to ensure the surgeon bled out on the floor of the gent's toilet with a _Closed for Repair_ sign on the door. Sometimes, making gestures like this was important to ensure obedience from those who had agreed to operate. Luckily, his hired killer had videoed the death, and the footage had proved persuasive to a number of the professionals who will be working on him.

One of the surgeons had been brave enough to warn him that no hospital could condone what he had in mind; he'd be on immunosuppressant medication for the rest of his life and on various other medications needed to control the side effects of those and the surgery. The regime would include antivirals and antibiotics because of his vulnerability to infections. One of the first Russian consultants he'd interviewed about the procedure had rattled off a long list of side effects. Headaches, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, anaemia, arthritis, weight gain, skin problems—Ford had almost wanted to tell the man he should try spending years in solitary confinement in a Georgian jail. All of the above were everyday occurrences, not to mention the nausea and digestive disorders associated with prison food. A compromised immune system was the reason why only twice before had a Western hospital been willing to deal with the ethical consequences of allowing such an elective procedure to be greenlit. In Russia, ethics are more flexible, able to accommodate a wealthy oligarch's needs in exchange for a very significant contribution. It wasn't enough to make the authorities turn a blind eye; he needed to actively encourage their co-operation. That had cost Ford a great deal of money, but it did the trick and removed the objections.

The money had not been a challenge to amass. Working as a secret consultant for not one but four oligarchs and two _bratva_ mafia families, Fyodr Knaslovsky has more than enough money and influence to secure his objectives.

His decision stands firm. This is about more than a voice; this is about taking back what's rightfully his. Nothing could possibly outweigh the pleasure he will take when it comes time to meet Mycroft again. He has imagined the scene for years; rehearsing it has been his solace, his go-to-escapism when the daily sight of his prison walls had become claustrophobic. The unadulterated joy of seeing the shocked look on that smug face—it's been enough to keep him company on his long journey from that horrid cell in Tbilisi to this point.

The surgery to replace the current hole in his throat with a donor larynx is very complicated, but he has been assured that, with proper post-operative therapy to relearn how to swallow, breathe and vocalise again, he should recover his own voice. _It’s a miracle of modern medicine._ Ford is not a doctor, but ever since arriving in Russia, he has made it his mission to investigate this specific operation. He still finds it bizarre that, despite the vocal cords coming from a donor, it will be definitely _his_ old voice. Apparently, the rest of his body has more influence over the tone and timbre than most people believe.

Ford turns away from the window, bored with the sight of pedestrians trudging through the slush between the buildings. He has better things to keep his imagination busy over the next three years.

_It's worth any risk_. He's willing to suffer any amount of pain for the privilege of being able to destroy Mycroft's absurd belief that he'd been silenced forever. Eleven hundred days between him and the moment when Ford will be able to tell him in his own voice how very, very stupid Mycroft the usurper has been. First, he will strip the title off the man and proclaim himself the Viscount of Sherrinford. He is in the process of accumulating the blackmail material against Lady Smallwood and Elizabeth ffoukes, not to mention the other members of the secret tribunal that had convicted him of treason and sent him to Tbilisi. The fact that it has been an extra-judicial proceeding actually makes it easier for him to return. It will be their turn to be silenced.

Then, he will kill Mycroft. Slowly, in whatever way he thinks will maximise the pain; there will be no quick exit for his archenemy. Perhaps he will have an oubliette built somewhere in Parham's cellars and starve the man to death—now _that's_ an image he can build on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *new letter.  
Every story needs a villain, and Ford is it for my universe of Sherlock fiction. Exit ends the Fallen Angel series. The scene is set for the hiatus, which is covered in brief in the story "Still Talking When You're Not There". Sherlock's return is covered in "The Great Man", in the Got My Eye on You series, and also in that series "Pocket Full of Rye". Sherlock's troubles re-adjusting to London after the hiatus is in "Devonshire Squires", and then the Magpie Series starts, with One for Sorrow and Two for Joy already released. 
> 
> Exit also concludes the Viclock series (Extricate, The Ex and now Exit) for now, although there is a distinct possibility of something in the future, when Victor realises that Sherlock is alive. 
> 
> The next story to appear will be Magpies "Three for a Girl" and "Four for a Boy".


End file.
